University of Virginia Library

1. VOL. I.

THE ROMAN.

A DRAMATIC POEM.

SCENE I.

A Plain in Italy—an ancient Battle-field. Time, Evening.
Persons.—Vittorio Santo, a Missionary of Freedom. He has gone out, disguised as a Monk, to preach the Unity of Italy, the Overthrow of Austrian Domination, and the Restoration of a great Roman Republic.——A number of Youths and Maidens, singing as they dance. ‘The Monk’ is musing.
Enter Dancers.
Dancers.
Sing lowly, foot slowly, oh why should we chase
The hour that gives heaven to this earthly embrace?
To-morrow, to-morrow, is dreary and lonely;
Then love as they love who would live to love only!
Closer yet, eyes of jet,—breasts fair and sweet!
No eyes flash like those eyes that flash as they meet!
Weave brightly, wear lightly, the warm-woven chain,
Love on for to-night if we ne'er love again.
Fond youths! happy maidens! we are not alone!
Bright steps and sweet voices keep pace with our own.
Love-lorn Lusignuolo, the soft-sighing breeze,
The rose with the zephyr, the wind with the trees.
While Heaven, blushing pleasure, is full of love-notes,
Soft down the sweet measure the fairy world floats.

The Monk advances, meets the Dancers, and points to the turf at their feet.
The Monk.
Do you see nothing there,
There, where the unrespective grass grows green,
There at your very feet? Nay, not one step!
'Twould touch it! 'twould profane it! Palsied be
The limb that treads that ground! There is a grave—
There is a grave;—I saw it with these eyes—
A grave! I saw it with these eyes! It holds—
It holds—oh Heaven!—my mother!

One of the Revellers.
Peace, good Padre,
Look to thy beads. The turf is level here.
Comrades! strike up! ‘Sing lowly, foot——’

The Monk.
Who steps,
Steps first on me. I say there is a grave,
I say it is my mother's: that I loved her,
Ay, loved her with more passion than the maddest
Lover among ye clasps his one-day wife!
And I steal forth to keep my twilight vigil,
And you come here to dance upon my heart.
You come and—with the world at will for dalliance,
The whole hot world—deny me that small grave
Whose bitter margin these poor knees know better
Than your accustom'd feet the well-worn path
To your best harlot's bower. The turf is fair!
Have I not kept it green with tears, my mother?
You lustful sons of lax-eyed lewdness, do you
Come here to sing above her bones, and mock me,
Because my flesh and blood cry out, ‘God save them?’
May the Heaven's blight——

One of the Revellers.
Nay, holy father, nay,
We would not harm thee. Be it as thou wilt.
Holy Madonna! there is little dust
In this old land, but has been son or mother
In its own day. What ho! my merry friends,
Come, we must dance upon some other grave.
Farewell, good father!

Another Reveller.
Save you, father!

Another.
Think not,
We would insult thy sorrow.

The Monk.
Well, forgive me.
I pray you listen how I loved my mother,
And you will weep with me. She loved me, nurst me,
And fed my soul with light. Morning and Even
Praying, I sent that soul into her eyes,
And knew what Heaven was though I was a child.
I grew in stature, and she grew in goodness.
I was a grave child; looking on her taught me
To love the beautiful: and I had thoughts
Of Paradise, when other men have hardly
Look'd out of doors on earth. (Alas! alas!
That I have also learn'd to look on earth
When other men see heaven.) I toil'd, but ever
As I became more holy, she seem'd holier;
Even as when climbing mountain-tops the sky
Grows ampler, higher, purer as ye rise.
Let me believe no more. No, do not ask me
How I repaid my mother. O thou saint,
That lookest on me day and night from heaven
And smilest, I have given thee tears for tears,
Anguish for anguish, woe for woe. Forgive me
If, in the spirit of ineffable penance,
In words, I waken up the guilt that sleeps.
Let not the sound afflict thine heaven, or colour
That pale, tear-blotted record which the angels
Keep of my sins. We left her. I and all
The brothers that her milk had fed. We left her—
And strange dark robbers, with unwonted names,
Abused her! bound her! pillaged her! profaned her!
Bound her clasped hands, and gagg'd the trembling lips
That pray'd for her lost children. And we stood
And she knelt to us, and we saw her kneel,
And look'd upon her coldly and denied her!
Denied her in her agony—and counted
Before her sanguine eyes the gold that bought
Her pangs. We stood——

One of the Revellers.
Nay, thou cowl'd ruffian! hold!
There's vengeance for thee yet! Dost thou come here
To blast our hearing with thy damned crimes?
Seize on him, comrades, tear him limb from limb!

The Monk.
Yes, seize him! tear him! tear him! he will bless thee
If thy device can work a deeper pain
Than he will welcome and has suffer'd. Tear him!
But, friends, not yet. Hear her last tortures. Then
Find, if ye can, some direr pang for me.
The Robbers wearied, and they bade us hold her,
Lest her death-struggles should get free. She look'd
Upon me with the face that lit my childhood,
She called me with the voices of old times,
She blest me in her madness. But, they show'd us
Gold, and we seized upon her, held her, bound her,
Smote her. She murmur'd kind words, and I gave her
Blows.

One Auditor.
Fiend!

Another.
Hound!

Another.
Demon!

Another.
Strike him!

Another.
Hold him down!
Kill him for hours!

The Monk.
Why how now, countrymen?
How now, you slaves that should be Romans? Ah!
And you will kill me that I smote my mother?
Well done, well done, a righteous doom! I smote
My mother? Hold! My mother, did I say?
My mother? Mine, yours, ours!

One Auditor.
Seize him.

All.
Die, liar!
Die.

The Monk.
But my brothers—will you seize my brothers?
What! will you let that cursed band escape
That hoard the very gold that slew her? Make
A full end. Finish up the work. You cowards!
What! you can pounce on an unarm'd poor man,
But tremble at the gilded traitors!

All.
Name them!
They shall die! Point them out! where are they?

The Monk.
Here!
You are my brothers. And my mother was
Yours. And each man among you day by day
Takes, bowing, the same price that sold my mother,
And does not blush. Her name is Rome. Look round,
And see those features which the sun himself
Can hardly leave for fondness. Look upon
Her mountain bosom, where the very sky
Beholds with passion: and with the last proud
Imperial sorrow of dejected empire,
She wraps the purple round her outraged breast,
And even in fetters cannot be a slave.
Look on the world's best glory and worst shame.
You cannot count her beauties or her chains,
You cannot know her pangs or her endurance.
You, whom propitious skies may hardly coax
To threescore years and ten. Your giant fathers
Call'd Atlas demigod. But what is she,
Who, worn with eighteen centuries of bondage,
Stands manacled before the world, and bears
Two hemispheres—innumerable wrongs,
Illimitable glories. Oh, thou heart
That art most tortured, look on her and say
If there be any thing in earth or heaven,
In earth or heaven—now that Christ weeps no longer—
So most divinely sad. Look on her. Listen
To all the tongues with which the earth cries out.
Flowers, fountains, winds, woods, spring and summer incense,
Morning and eve—these are her voices—hear them!
Remember how, in the old innocent days
Of your young childhood, these sang blessings on you.
Remember how you danced to those same voices,
And sank down tired, and slept in joy, not doubting
That they would sing to-morrow; and remember
How when some hearts that danced in those old days,
And worn out laid them down, and have not waken'd,
Gave back no answer to the morning sun,
She took them to her mother's breast and still
Holds them unweary, singing by their slumbers,
And though you have forgotten them remembers
To strew their unregarded graves with flowers.
Oh those old days, those canonizèd days!
Oh that bright realm of sublunary heaven,
Wherein they walk'd in haloes of sweet light,
And we look'd up, unfearing, and drew near
And learnt of them what no succeeding times
Can tell us since of joy;—for so, being angels,
They suffer'd little children. Oh those days!
Why is it that we hear them now no more?
And the same destiny that brought us pangs
Took every balsam hence? Did we wake up
From infancy's last slumber in a new
And colder world? My mother, thou shalt answer!
I hear thee—see thee. The same soul informs
The present that look'd once through undimm'd eyes
In Childhood's past. What though it shines through tears?
It shines. What though it speaks with trembling lips,
Tuned to such grief that they say bright words sadly?
It speaks. And by that speech thou art the mother
That bore us! Oh you sons of hers, remember
When joy had grown to passion, and high youth
Had aim'd the shafts that lay in Childhood's quiver,
If you have ever gone out, (and each Roman
Heart must have note of one such better day,)
Full of high thoughts, ambitions, destinies,
And stood, downcast, among her ruin'd altars,
And fed the shameful present with the past;
And felt thy soul on the stern food grow up
To the old Roman stature: and hast started
To feel a hundred nameless things, which Kings
Call sins,—and Patriots, virtues: and self-judged,
Conscious and purple with the glorious treason,
Hast lifted flashing eyes, bold with great futures,
And in one glance challenged her earth, seas, skies,
And they have said, ‘Well Done.’ And thou hast felt
Like a proud child whom a proud mother blesses.
Ah! your brows kindle! What! I have said well?
What! there are some among you who have been
The heroes of an hour? you men of Parma,
What! you were Romans once! you worse than slaves,
Who, being Romans once, are men of Parma!
Tried on the Roman habit, and could wear it
But a short hour on your degenerate limbs!
Sons of the empress of the world, and slaves
To powers a Roman bondman would not count
Upon his fingers on a holiday!
Do not believe me yet. She is no mother,
Who has but nursed your joy and pride. Remember,
If thou hast ever wept without a heart
To catch one tear, and in the lonely anguish
Of thy neglected agony look'd out
On this immortal world, and seen—love-stricken—
Light after light her shadowy joys take up
Thy lorn peculiar sorrow, till thy soul
Seem'd shed upon the universe, and grief,
Deponent of its separate sadness, clung
To the stupendous dolour of all things,
And wept with the great mourner, and smiled with her
When she came back to sunshine—with the joy
Of a young child after the first great grief
Wherein a mother's holy words first spake
To the young heart of God. But I am dreaming;
You have not wept as I have. Yet remember,
If she hath shown you softer signs than these—
If there are none among you who have given
To her chaste beauty, to the woods and mountains,
And lone dim places, sorrowfully sweet,
Where love first learns to hear himself, and blush not—
Thoughts which you would deny me at confession,
Thoughts which, although the peril of a soul
Hung on their utterance, would have gone unborn
In silence down to hell, unblest, unshriven,
And, in despairing coyness, daring all,
Because they could dare nothing. Like the shy
Scared bird, to which the serpent's jaws are better
Than his rude eyes. And yet you gave them to her,
And these same trembling phantasies went forth,
To meet the storms that shake the Apennines,
And did not fear. And so you call'd her mother,
And so the invisible in you confest
The unseen in her; and so you bore your witness
To her august maternity, and she
Reflected back the troth. Remember, so
Great Romulus and those who after him
Built the Eternal City, and their own
Twin-born eternity—even as the workman
Is greater than the work—stood at her knee,
And brighten'd in her blessing; and remember
If they were sons like you! What! can dead names
Stir living blood? Fear not, my countrymen!
They are not German chieftains that I spoke of.
Tremble not, brethren, they are not our lords.
Our lords! they conquered men. They are some souls
That once took flesh and blood in Italy,
And thought it was a land to draw free breath in,
And drew it long, and died here; and since live
Everywhere else. What! your brows darken! what!
I wrong'd you foully; 'twas no fear that daubed them:
What! your cheeks flush as some old soldier's child,
Glows at inglorious ease when a chance tongue
Speaks of the triumph where his father fell!
What then! these dead are yours! Men, what are they?
What are they?—ask the world and it shall answer.
And you? True, true, you have your creed; you tell me
That twice a thousand years have not outworn
The empire in that blood of theirs that flows
In your dull veins. You tell me you are Romans!
Yet they were lords and you are slaves; the earth
Heard them and shook. It shakes, perchance, for you;
Shakes with the laugh of scorn that there are things
Who lick the dust that falls from Austrian feet,
And call the gods their fathers! Bear with me,
I am not here to reckon up your shames,
I will know nothing here but my wrong'd mother.
I cry before heaven she is yours. That you
May kill me for the part I bore, and then
Do judgment on yourselves. Look on that mother
Whose teeming loins peopled with gods and heroes
Earth and Olympus—sold to slaves whose base
Barbarian passions had been proud to swell
In death a Roman pageant. Every limb
Own'd by some separate savage—each charm lent
To some peculiar lust. The form that served
The world for signs of beauty parcell'd out
A carcase on the shambles, where small kings,
Like unclean birds, hang round the expected carrion,
And chaffer for the corpse which shall not die!
Look on that mother and behold her sons!
Alas, she might be Rome if there were Romans!
Look on that mother! Wilt thou know that death
Can have no part in Beauty? Cast to-day
A seed into the earth, and it shall bear thee
The flowers that waved in the Egyptian hair
Of Pharaoh's daughter! Look upon that mother—
Listen, ye slaves, who gaze on her distress,
And turn to dwell with clamorous descant,
And prying eye, on some strange small device
Upon her chains. In no imperial feature,
In no sublime perfection, is she less
Than the world's empress, the earth's paragon,
Except these bonds. These bonds? Break them. Unbind,
Unbind Andromeda! She was not born
To stand and shiver in the northern blast,
Or fester on a foreign rock, or bear
Rude licence of the unrespective waves.
She is a queen! a goddess! a king's daughter!
What though her loveliness defied the heavens;
Unbind her, she shall fill them! Man, unbind her,
And, goddess as she is, she owns thee, loves thee,
Crowns thee! And is there none to break thy chains,
My country? Is there none, sons of my mother?
Strike, and the spell is broken. You behold her
Suppliant of suppliants. Strike! and she shall stand
Forth in her awful beauty, more divine
Than death or mortal sorrow; clothing all
The wrecks and ruins of disastrous days
In old-world glory—even as the first spring
After the deluge. Why should we despair?
The heroes whom your fathers took for gods,
Walk'd in her brightness, and received no more
Than she gives back to you, who are not heroes,
And have not yet been men. They toil'd and bled,
And knew themselves immortal, when they hung
Their names upon her altars; ask'd no fate
But that which you inherit and disdain
To call it heritage—subdued the world,
And with superior scorn heard its lip-service,
And bade it call them Romans, and believe
Earth had no haughtier name. Be not deceived.
They stood on Roman, you on Parman ground,
But yet this mould is the same ground they stood on.
The evening wind, that passes by us now,
To their proud senses was the evening wind.
These are the hills, and these the plains, whereby
The Roman shepherd fed his golden flocks,
And kings look'd from their distant lands, and thought him
Greater than they. The masters of the world
Heard the same streams that speak to you, its slaves.
These rocks were their rocks, and their Roman spring
Brought, year by year, the very self-same blossoms,
(The self-same blossoms, but they stood for crowns.)
The flowers beneath their feet had the same perfume
As those you tread on—do they scorn your tread?
They saw your stars; and when the sun went down,
The mountains on his face set the same signs
To their eyes as to yours. O thou unseen
Rome of their love,—immaculate and free!
Thou who didst sit amid the Apennines,
And looking forth upon the conscious world,
Which heard thee and obey'd, beheld thy children
From sea to sea! Yes, we are here, my mother,
And here beside thy mountain throne we call thee,
Ascend, thou uncrown'd queen! Yet a few days,
Yet a few days, and all is past. Behold
Even now, the harvest seedeth, and the ear
Bends rich with death. Yet a few days, my mother,
And thou shalt hear the shouting of the reapers,
And we who sharp the sickle shall ring out
The harvest-home. Nay, look not on me, mother,
Look not on me in thy sublime despair;
Thou shalt be free! I see it all, my mother,
Thy golden fetters, thy profanèd limbs,
Thy toils, thy stripes, thine agonies, thy scars,
And thine undying beauty. Yes, all, all,
And all for us and by us. Look not on me.
Ay! lift thy canker'd hands to heaven, earth hath not
Room for so vast a wrong. Thou shalt be free,
Thou shalt be free, before the heavens I swear it!
By thy long agony, thy bloody sweat,
Thy passion of a thousand years, thy glory,
Thy pride, thy shame, thy worlds subdued and lost,
Thou shalt be free! By thine eternal youth,
And co-eternal utterless dishonour—
Past, present, future, life and death, all oaths,
Which may bind earth and heaven, mother, I swear it.
We know we have dishonour'd thee. We know
All thou canst tell the angels. At thy feet,
The feet where kings have trembled, we confess,
And weep; and only bid thee live, my mother,
To see how we can die. Thou shalt be free!
By all our sins, and all thy wrongs we swear it.
We swear it, mother, by the thousand omens
That heave this pregnant time. Tempests for whom
The Alps lack wombs—quick earthquakes—hurricanes
That moan and chafe, and thunder for the light,
And must be native here. Hark, hark, the angel!
I see the birthday in the imminent skies!
Clouds break in fire. Earth yawns. The exulting thunder
Shouts havoc to the whirlwinds. And men hear,
Amid the terrors of consenting storms,
Floods, rocking worlds, mad seas and rending mountains,
Above the infinite clash, one long great cry,
Thou shalt be free!

[The audience have one by one stolen away. The Monk, recovering from his enthusiasm, finds himself alone.
The Monk.
Ah solitude! and have I
Raved to the winds?

[A pause.
[Another long pause.
[Another long pause.
[Another pause.
[Another pause.
[A long pause.
[A very long pause.

SCENE II.

Time and Place as in Scene I.
Francesca, a young girl, one of the Auditors in Scene I., has remained hidden among the trees. The Monk, silent, musing.
Francesca
(musing).
While he yet spake I waited for a pause,
And now, if I could dare to hear my voice
In this most awful silence, it should pray
That he would speak again. You heavens, you heavens,
Lend me your language. This progressive thought,
This unit-bearing speech, whose best exertion
Is but dexterity, the juggler's sleight,
That with facility of motion cheats
The eye, whose noblest effort can but haste
The single ball of phantasy, and make
Succession seem coincidence, is not
For such an hour. Lend me some tongue, you heavens,
Worthy of gods: in whose celestial sense
The present, past, and future of the soul
Sink down as one; even as these dews to-night
Fall from a thousand stars.

He hears. He turns.
Now, now, ye saints!
The Monk
(turning and perceiving her).
Lady, what wouldst thou?

[She is silent.
Child,
What wouldst thou?
Francesca.
I have heard thee. Dost thou ask?

The Monk
(pointing to the dancers in the far distance).
Did they not hear? Daughter, persuade me this, And I will bless thee.

Francesca
(taking a flower from her breast).
Is that rosebud sweet?
luck'd it from a thicket as I pass'd;
One day, perhaps, some cottage plot; but now
Given up to dominance of vulgar thorns,
And weeds of deadlier moral. Yet methinks
'Tis still a rose. Wilt thou receive it?

The Monk.
Ay.

Francesca.
I am that rose, my father, so accept Me.

The Monk.
Child, I will.

Francesca.
I have heard much to-night
Of Roman deeds, of sages, and of heroes,
Of sons who loved, and sons who have betray'd.
Hath Rome no daughters to repeat her beauty,
Renew the model of old time, and teach
Her sons to love the mother in the child?
Was Rome, my father, built and peopled by
One sex? The very marble of your ruins
Looks masculine. In heart I roam about them,
But whereso'er my female soul peers in
—Even to the temple courts—some bearded image
Cries Privilege. Doth Salique law entail
The heritage of glory? Is there nothing,
Nothing, my father, in the work of freedom
For woman's hand to do?

The Monk.
The past, that book
Of demonstrated theorems, lies open.
Why seek my poor unproved hypothesis,
When God hath solved for thee? Child, choose thy page.
Here bleeds Lucretia. Rome hath now ten Tarquins
(Ten Tarquins, but we call them dukes and kings).
There, Arria. Many a Pætus lives to-night
Who would have given right joyfully to freedom
The Roman heart that makes a sorry slave,
If Arria would have shown him how to die.
Virginia! Appius—nay, we have no state
Where Appius would have deign'd to be a despot.
But that divine idea incarnate in
Virginia's corse, and teeming in the blood
Which quickening in your Roman ground grew up
A national virginity—that glory,
Though it reach up to heaven, may make its footstool
Wherever there is earth enough to die on.
Remember her who——

Francesca.
Hear me yet, my father,
And I will light thee to a sterner text
Than thou hast heart to preach from.

Yonder castle
Darkening the hill——
The Monk.
Child, the days come when where
The deadliest stronghold of its lordliest keep
Spreads the dank flags, tear-damp, of its most dark
Detested dungeon, thou—not I—shalt see
The wild thyme and the bee.

Francesca.
Is there nought writ
Of Tullia, who once drove the car of blood
Over her father's corse? Sir, from those walls
My father rules.

The Monk
(after some silence).
Shall Paul stop preaching lest
Eutychus sleep? In the Damascene way
Shall his eyes shut out light from heaven? Not though
It scorch them blind! Truth is a god, my child;
Rear thou the altar, he himself provides
The lamb. The great judge, Truth, who takes thy verdict,
Avenges a false finding though it save
Thy brother's soul. Truth is the equal sun,
Ripening no less the hemlock than the vine.
Truth is the flash that turns aside no more
For castle than for cot. Truth is a spear
Thrown by the blind. Truth is a Nemesis
Which leadeth her belovèd by the hand
Through all things; giving him no task to break
A bruisèd reed, but bidding him stand firm
Though she crush worlds.

Francesca.
Master! I would serve Truth.

The Monk
(meditates, then speaks).
Oh Freedom! ruddy goddess of the hill,
Say, from that breezy ledge of genial rock,
Where, yet ere twilight, with thine eastward face
Turn'd to to-morrow's sunrise, thou hast laid
Thy joyous limbs, dew-bathed—which day scarce tames
To sleep—oh say, is this pale dreamer thine?
home, poor child, thou hast thy burden; I
Add nothing.

Francesca.
Thou canst speak in parables,
Or with stern silence stifle the poor heart
That breathes thy words; but, father, I will sit
Here at thy feet.

The Monk.
So does my dog; but do I
Take him to council?

Francesca.
Yet thou givest him
To watch thee day and night. Grant me no less.

The Monk.
Oh tyrant's daughter, lovest thou Roman thus?

Francesca.
Ay.

The Monk (musing).
Can the heart be less than what it holds?
The fetter'd slave that in his fetters slays
His lord, has strength to break them. Arms that break
Their chains have strength to throw them in the sea.
Perchance I have judged ill. Yes. Unattaint,
Perchance, the Arethusan blood of Rome
Hath coursed the conduit of a tyrant's veins,
And from the fetid entrails of the earth
Springs up Diana's fountain.

Francesca.
Thy words stand 'twixt my home and me.

The Monk.
Hence! Thou shalt pass them.
Freedom's sentinels
Challenge no feathers.

Francesca.
I have heard thy fears,
And fear not. Do the damn'd, my father, shrink
At voice of angel? Shall not the small sense
Of feeblest child sustain the crash of doom?

The Monk.
The day is thine.
a Greek sage once, who stood in spirit
Sublime beside his outraged flesh and blood,
The only calm beholder. He and thou,
Raw girl! have come into one heritage;
He in grey hairs, weary and wise, as sage;
Thou in the flush of unreflecting days,
As woman. With bowed head I stand before thee,
Child! teach me.

Francesca.
Mock me not, oh father, mock
Me not. Is it so great a boon to die?

The Monk.
Have what thou wilt—do what thou wilt.

Francesca
(throwing herself at his feet).
He takes me!
You Heavens! he takes me. Master, Teacher, Lord!

The Monk.
I take thee not.

Francesca.
Thou canst not drive me from thee!
I see it all! He would even crush the fly
That hums about him. No, my father, no,
I die not thus.

The Monk.
I take thee not, brave girl,
Thy Country claims thee. That great Rome, for whom
Many have fallen, but how few have died.
That generous country, which, while other lands
Build up their bulwarks of their children's dust,
Of her best sons, in her worst need, asks only
Apotheosis. Dost thou weep to exchange
The mortal for the eternal?

Francesca.
Teach me how
To serve her.

The Monk.
Pay her tithes of the rich love
That bore thee to her feet. That love which triumph'd
In victory like his of Underwalden,
Who buried in his own unconquer'd breast
Th' opposing spears.

Francesca.
Father, I am a poor
Weak ignorant. Thy voice falls on my heart
Like heavenly music, but alas, I know not
What words they sing to it in heaven. I pray thee
Give eyes to this blind trouble in my soul,
Set me some task—nay, do not spare me, master,
Some task at which thy bravest is not brave—
Teach me some lesson, in our woman's language,
Of action and endurance; I will say it,
That thou shalt bless thy scholar!

The Monk.
Child! child! child!
Thou art yet young, and foot of babe can do
No sacrilege. But curb these proud beliefs,
There comes a time, when holy bounds o'erstept
May blast thee. Child, freedom hath sanctuaries,
Wherein the chaste hands of her best high-priest
Tremble to serve. Slave! merry smiling slave!
Dancing an hour since to the shameful music
Of thine own chains——

Francesca.
Oh father, father, spare me!
Make me her lowest servant——

The Monk.
Child, not so.
How should I judge thee? Enoch was the first,
But not the last translated. To both worlds
—The inner and the outer—we come naked.
The very noblest heart on earth hath oft
No better lot than to deserve. And yet,
What laurell'd impotent shall show his head
Beside that uncrown'd giant?

Francesca.
Oh father!

The Monk.
Let me breathe thee round the base
Of the celestial steep. I have a task
Such as becomes the neophyte of freedom;
It shall be thine.

Francesca.
I clasp thy knees, my father.

The Monk.
Brave girl, it is a Tyro's task; a baptism
That will not drown. The very holiday-work
Of glory——

Francesca.
May I do no nobler?

The Monk.
Hear it.
Go forth at dawn—as they of old, go forth—
Carry nor purse, nor scrip, nor shoes, salute
By the way no man. Through this sad broad land,
Even from the Alps to the three seas, cry out,
‘Rome is at hand!’

Francesca.
Father, no more?

The Monk.
No more.

Francesca.
No word of War, Glory, Shame, Tyrants? Nothing
Of this Rome's feature?

The Monk.
Did John Baptist know
Whom he foreran? Daughter, thy chains lie there,
Not two hours off. No law forbids thee wear them.

Francesca.
Forgive me, father, I am thine, all thine,
But—nay, frown not—what if men tire of this
Strange cuckoo note?

The Monk.

[The Monk sings—recitativo—touching the lute at intervals.
Francesca
(sadly).
Alas! there only
Is thy child false.

The Monk.
Ah! sighing still?

Francesca.
Dear father,
One more forgiveness! Spirits half cast out
Tear the possess'd and cry. Indulgent master,
Complete thy miracle.

The Monk
(severely).
Hath the possess'd
Faith to be healed?

Francesca.
I could do all for love,
Bleed, die for it,—even to the second death—
I could, I would, I will—but to give flesh
For marble; to be crush'd out of the earth
By some cold image falling from the clouds!

The Monk.
Woman, is this a place for earthly passion?

Francesca.
Not passion, no, not passion. Human light
In the stern idol's eyes—a heart, a pulse
To sanctify the embrace—the love that throbs
Belief—Oh master, master!

The Monk.
I am patient,
Strange priestess—how long are these mysteries?

Francesca
(pauses).
Sir, they are even now ended. I say not
Whether the fire be out upon the altar,
Or if the holy portals are self-closed
Against unpitying eyes; but—they are ended.

The Monk.
Child, I have wrong'd thee.

Francesca.
Father, say not so.
They are not wrong'd who have no rights. And what
Have I before thee?

The Monk.
More, my daughter, more
Than thou or I remembered. Do the stars
Frown on us? Yet that cloud of wayward wishes
The world sent up at vesper-time hangs now
Fevering the heaven between their eyes and ours.
Daughter, forget my sins. Fond Hector, arm'd,
Smiled a paternity too terrible
Even for a hero's child. The earnest soul
Drawing a sword is warrior cap-a-pied,
And this voice, strife-strain'd, catches ill to-night
The pitch of the confessional. Brave girl,
Canst thou trust twice?

Francesca.
Do I trust God the less
For an unanswer'd prayer? Command me, master;
'Twas the Promethean madness that essay'd
To warm a clay heart with celestial fire.
I am content to serve.

The Monk.
Nay, tell me all.

Francesca.
Not so, my father. No, thou shalt not cross
This threshold. No, thou shalt not stoop so low
As to the lintel of a heart like mine!
Nay, tempt me not. I have received my sorrow,
And am content. The sin was too delicious
For feebler retribution. But, oh, once
To bear what I have borne this hour sufficeth
For one life.

The Monk.
Thou poor trembling child, be calm.
Truth, partial to her sex, made woman free
Even of her inmost cell; but man walks round
The outer courts, and by the auspices
And divinations of the augur reason,
Knows her chaste will, her voice, and habit better
—With a sure science, more abstract and pure—
Than ye who run by instinct to her knee.
Answer me, child, perchance——

Francesca.
Nay, father, nay,
I am not worthy of thine auguries.
I will confess. I fear'd—forgive me, father,
I did fear that as there have been who flew
Wild with their own inevitable shadow;
The dark monotony from day to day,
Of words that had no image in my brain,—
Great everpresent names that stand for nothing
In heaven or earth, sounds, awful, awful sounds,
For shapes I cannot see, haunting my ears,
Might drive me mad. Is not a whisper, father,
Fearful at night? Are there not some, my father,
Who have been doom'd to drag a skeleton
Rattling behind them? Oh, you heavens, you heavens,
I shall go mad.

The Monk
(musingly).
Ay, child, those rank weeds, words,
Exhaust the soul.

Francesca.
A little love, dear master, It seem'd to me if I could know and love —Though afar off—this Rome of which thou speakest,
It would make life of death.

The Monk.
Yes, thou must love her,
There must be fire from heaven or hell to burn
Offerings that burnt were incense, but neglected
Pollute the winds. Thou must love Rome, my daughter,
As she loves thee.

Francesca.
Oh, can she love me? How,
Oh, tell me how the mortal can win looks
From the eternal? How the daughters of men
Drew angels down? Alas, thou jestest, father,
She—the espoused of ages—how shall I
Woo her?

The Monk.
Even as thou makest other loves.
Watch her and wait upon her; let her share
Thy morn and eve, and in the sleep of noon
Dream of her. Have no shame to see her by
Thy bed at night, and to undress thine heart
In her sad gaze.

In the dull ways of men
Sitting and walking lonely, let her image
Be thy attendant spirit, and interpret
All things into her language. Haply passing
A ruin'd garden, all of broken statues,
Temples o'er-turn'd, sweet haunts of love and pleasance
Defiled and trodden in the outraged earth,
And blossoms like the noon for radiance, trampled
By foul insulting feet: while over all
The appealing music of wronged solitudes,
Of shades deflower'd and sanctities profaned,
Hangs like a dewy exhalation—then
Look up and say, My country!
Wandering through
The lovely ruin, if thy step should strike
On some fair column; prone and moss-interr'd,
Fit for a god to stand on; one of those
That found amid a desert's sands alone,
Should of the wealth of its one witness give
Another tome to history—be reverent,
Tread as thy feet were among graves—and say,
My country!
Or, oh prince's daughter, if
In some proud street, leaning 'twixt night and day
From out thy palace balcony to meet
The breeze—that tempted by the hush of eve,
Steals from the fields about a city's shows,
And like a lost child, scared with wondering, flies
From side to side in touching trust and terror,
Crying sweet country names and dropping flowers—
Leaning to meet that breeze, and looking down
To the so silent city, if below
With dress disorder'd and dishevell'd passions
Streaming from desperate eyes that flash and flicker
Like corpse-lights, (eyes that once were known on high,
Morning and night, as welcome there as thine,)
And brow of trodden snow, and form majestic
That might have walk'd unchallenged through the skies,
And reckless feet, fitful with wine and woe,
And songs of revel that fall dead about
Her ruin'd beauty—sadder than a wail—
(As if the sweet maternal eve for pity
Took out the joy, and, with a blush of twilight,
Uncrown'd the Bacchanal)—some outraged sister
Passeth, be patient, think upon yon heaven,
Where angels hail the Magdalen, look down
Upon that life in death and say—My country!

SCENE III.

The Neighbourhood of Milan, during a Popular Emeute.
A great band of Insurgents, armed, and singing, pass over. The Monk stands near.
All
(chanting as they march).

[They pass; the Monk steps forth, and stopping some of the rearg uard, speaks.
The Monk.
Would you know
The path of that false tyrant, who enslaved
Your fetter'd land: and, with her outraged beauties
Beaming upon you, made ye glad to die?

Soldier.
Ay, holy father.

The Monk.
Would you know the spot
Where, in the shoutings of his maniac triumph,
He calls his blood-hounds round his gory hands,
And cheers them on the prey?

Soldier.
Since the noon-sun
Shone on the flying Austrians, we have track'd them,
And burn to sup as we have dined. Speak on.

The Monk.
If I could count you man by man, and horse
By horse, and bayonet by bayonet,
And point the very lurking place—

Soldier.
Nay, speak!
The sun sinks, and Milan herself goes down
With to-night's dews. Speak, speak, good father.

The Monk.
Fools!
What! do you take me for some Austrian trull,
At service of the first camp follower
That sues her? Do you think I make my council
Of way-side danglers? Dost betray me, fellow?
Thou pale-faced German knave, if thou art aught
That man may name unblushing, hence and bring me
The leaders of this crew.

One Soldier to another.
Go fetch the captain
Of the tenth troop.

The Monk.
Friend, fetch ten thousand captains,
And march them here to march them back again;
What! dost thou think Milan's great doom is meat
For mouths like thine? Hence, bring your general,
And bid him—as he values absolution
For all that army of unshriven souls
That hope to make their beds in Paradise—
Appear with such attendance as befits
The majesty of freedom. Hence, and tell him
I can show where Milan's great foe is flagrant,
And swear upon my priestly faith, this night
He shall behold him!

[Exit a soldier.
Enter General and crowd of troops.
General.
Sir, and reverend father,
Thou wilt forgive me if I am deceived—
A straggler of our army brought—but now—
An imminent commandment. Was it thine?

The Monk.
Mine.

General.
We do trust thou hast not wrong'd us, father:
Each passing moment that goes by us now
Is full of lives.

The Monk.
I have not wrong'd you. Hear me.
You say you combat for your country—mine,
Yours, every man's in whom the proud high blood
Of the old time still struggles with the present,
And throbs and blushes at degenerate days:
The country of the Cæsars, and the saints,
And, better still, the land of stirring deeds,
Done by rude hands, and heads as yet uncrown'd
In earth or heaven; the lady of the kingdoms—
The soil on which the gods came down, confounding
Their heaven with ours;—restore me if I wander
From your own words—you strike for this dear country?

All.
Die for it!

The Monk.
And the tide that flowed from those
Old Roman veins like empire, so that where
The Roman bled he ruled—the blood that soak'd
His sovereignty into the land he fell on,
Flows in you, and you feel it?

General.
Reverend father,
Time hastes—the news—thine oath—we must hence—

The Monk.
Peace!
Wilt thou direct my gifts, rebellious child?
[Turning to the Crowd.
Say, will you hear me? Will you know the spot
Where the foe lurks I swore to show you?

All.
Speak!

The Monk.
You feel the pulses of the Roman blood,
You think the masters of the world begot
Kings, and not slaves—you come forth with the same
Looks, passions, sinews, souls and giant hearts,
Which in your sires stood round your ancient heroes,
And lifted them to glory on their shields,
—Those heroes worshipp'd by the startled earth,
Who seeing them above you, call'd them gods—
You know the same grand instinct of vast empire,
You stand upon the same Italian ground,
You stand on that same ground, the same proud people,
And the inheritors of ancient worlds,
Shout for Milan! What! will you pay your lives
To buy a freedom girt by fewer acres
Than your old consuls would have thrown away
Upon a birth-day gift? What, has this land,
This Italy, grown smaller, and lacks ground
For such a temple as it once upbore?
Or in your base hearts, shrunk with shameful days,
Is there no space to build a Roman glory?
Go to! you feebler sons of feeble days,
You that would totter with the very name
By which men call'd your sires! Go to, you pigmies,
Who have no more resource in your dwarf nerves,
To know the squalor of your futile limbs,
Than you have sight or soul or sense to compass
The awful stature of a Roman people!
Why do I speak of glory? Italy,
This Italy, which in its length and breadth
Scarce served your fathers for a throne to sit on,
Confounds their children with its vast horizon!
And the posterity of those who counted
Conquests by continents, weigh'd out dominion
By hemispheres, and cast a score of kingdoms
As dust to balance the unequal scale,
Wage comfit combats at a carnival!
Coin fatherlands and farthings; and step out
Their mimic royalties, and make toy princes
Glorious in gilt and gingerbread for kings
At school to play with. Husbandmen in crowns,
Great in the lordship of a Roman field,
Affect the despot, and to trembling townships
Nod sovereignty; with equal hand create
A constitution, country, and court-cook,
Will loyalties, and point with awful finger
Which hedge and ditch shall bound a patriotism!
While Romans smile, and sons of Cæsar farm
Well pleas'd what Cæsar would have deem'd too strait
To breed his wild boars for a hunting day,
And call it Empire!

Enter fresh crowds of Soldiers shouting.
Soldiers.
Long live the republic!
Long live the commonwealth of Lombardy!

The Monk.
Long live eternal Rome! long live that Rome
Which is not dead but sleepeth! long live Rome!
Men, this is the great year of resurrection!
All who are in their graves shall hear his voice,
And come forth! That which twenty centuries hence
Lay down a hero, shall rise up a god!
Shout, countrymen! and wake the graves; shout, Rome!
Republic! Rise!

Many voices.
Down with him, down with him. Viva Milano!

General.
A hearing, comrades!

Many.
Peace! the General speaks!

General.
Priest, at thy peril——

Many.
At thy peril, priest!

General.
Priest, at thy peril, cease these timeless babblings,
Respect thine oath and life. Show us the foe!

Soldiers.
The foe, the foe, the foe——

The Monk.
Each silent man,
When I cry Rome! Each false, base-blooded shouter,
When you cry Lombardy!

Soldiers.
Base-blooded! false!
Base-blooded! false! give him a ball in the mouth!
Milan! Milan! up muskets!

General.
Shoulder arms!

The Monk.
Each self-judged helot, pleased to toil, a Goth,
When he might rule, a Roman! Rome? Rome? Rome?
Bah! by what witchcraft should you know that name,
You Tuscans, Luccans, Florentines, Sardinians,
Parmans, Placentians, Paduans and—slaves?

Soldiers.
Spear him—a pike, a pike!

Some.
Hear the priest!

Others
(with great uproar).
Stone him,
Stone him——

The Monk.
I am a Roman. Let some Vandal
Cast the first stone.

SCENE IV.

Moonlight.
Francesca alone, musing, sitting on a bank beneath trees. Cecco, a friend, enters unperceived, at the close of her soliloquy.
Francesca.
I will but live in twilight,
I will seek out some lone Egerian grove,
Where sacred and o'er-greeting branches shed
Perpetual eve, and all the cheated hours
Sing vespers. And beside a sullen stream,
Ice-cold at noon, my shadowy self shall sit,
Crown'd with dull wreaths of middle-tinted flowers;
With sympathetic roses, wan with weeping
For April sorrows; frighten'd harebells, pale
With thunder; last, half-scented honeysuckle,
That like an ill-starr'd child hides its brown head
Through the long summer banquet, but steals late
To wander through the fragments of the feast,
And glad us with remember'd words that fell
From guests of beauty; sunburnt lilies, grey
Wind-whispering ilex, and whatever leaves
And changeling blossoms Flora, half-asleep,
Makes paler than the sun and warmer than the moon!
Was ever slave so dark and cold as I?
Ah cruel, cruel night! the very stars
Put me to shame! I spur my soul all day
With thought of tyrants, woes and chains, and curse
As oft my pallid and ill-blooded nature,
That will not rage. Oh for some separate slave
To pity every vassal by! Some tyrant
By whom I might set down of all oppressors
That they are thus and thus! Oh that some hand,
Oh that some one hand, faint and fetter-wrung,
Would thrust its clanking wrongs before my eyes,
And I could bleed to break them!

Cecco
(approaching).
What voice is this,
That calls upon a traitor?

Francesca.
Thou base stranger,
Thou coward spy! one that will call on him,
Though her tongue pay the forfeit! Yes, vile Austrian,
I call him, I,—I, who to save my soul
Would scorn to call upon the milk-eyed saints
That look from Heaven upon your German deeds
And do not blight you!

Cecco
(drawing near).
Sister Roman! well
And timely met.

Francesca.
Cecco! thy lips are traitors,
And mouth to German fashions. I believed
The hour I sometime pray'd for, come already,
And thee an Austrian spy.

Cecco.
Forgive me that
I show'd my passport at a friendly gate,
Despair is a poor courtier. I may waste
Only so many words as may demand
Assistance, if thou hast it, and if not
God-speed! It wants but three short hours of dawn,
I swore to Santo he should have a Bible
Two hours before his time.

Francesca.
It wants three hours
Of dawn—thou sworest he should have a Bible
Two hours before his time—Cecco—

Cecco.
Be brief,
For pity. Is there any bold man near
Who has and who dare lend?

Francesca.
Be brief, for pity—
Thou sworest he should have—you heavens, you heavens,
What do your clouds hide?

Cecco.
I must leave thee.

Francesca
(to Cecco, who essays to go: she shows a poniard).
Cecco,
Tell me; tell all. Ah Cecco—nay, look here
In the moonlight—saints! I can use it!

Cecco.
Strange,
Wild girl, how? know'st thou not as well as I
Vittorio preaching to some Milanese
Who would be patriots if they knew but how,
Spent precious hours in which the German foe
Slipt from the snare? whereat brave Roderigo—
A gallant sword—the greatest libertine
In Milan—seized him. In the castle dungeon
He lies since noon, and with the coming dawn
Dies.

Francesca.
Dies, dies,—who dies?—pray you, friend, say on;
I am not wont to wander.

[She sinks gently to the earth. Cecco reclines her on a bank and hasten s on. After awhile Francesca sits up.
[A long pause; she sits with her head in her hands.
A gallant sword—the greatest libertine
In Milan?—yes, yes,—Roderigo,—yes—
[Another long pause.
He lies since noon—ay, in the castle dungeon,
And with the dawn—No, no, thou pitiless sun!
Thou durst not rise! Oh sea, if thou hast waves, Quench him!
[Another long pause.
A gallant sword—the greatest libertine
In Milan.—Ah—the greatest libertine?
Who says I am not fair? Ye gods! I curse you:
Why do ye tempt me?
[A very long pause. Cecco passes in returning.
[Exit Cecco.

SCENE V.

The Common Room of an Inn.
Enter, by different doors, a number of Students and Burghers, shouting to each other as they meet and greet.
Each and all.
The news? The news? The news? The news? The news?

One.
I've a good tale.

Another.
I better.

Another.
I the best.

Another.
Mine caps superlative.

Another.
Hurrah! and mine's
A feather in the cap.

Another.
Boys! mine's the bird
That grew the feather.

The first.
Hear me for my age.

The second.
Me for my honesty.

The third.
Me for my beauty!

The fourth.
Me for my wit.

The fifth.
Me for my eloquence.

The sixth.
Me
For all these.

Another.
Me for none of them, since naked
Beggars are best arm'd.

Enter Giacco.
Giacco.
Halloo!

All.
Giacco! Giacco!
Brave Giacco!

Giacco.
Here's a tale, my comrades!

All.
Hear him!

One.
Hurrah! trust Giacco for a pretty wench
And a good story.

Another.
Nay, for certain, Milan
Has no such tell-tale.

Another.
Lads! a cup all round,
Giacco does best!

One
(aside).
Pray Mary! he knows mine;
Every good saint! it must be mine.

Some.
Now, Giacco!

Others.
Attend! attend! attend!

Others.
Silence! Now, Giacco!

Giacco.
There came a man——

One.
Ay, 'tis so.

Another.
Very true—
So I say.

Another.
Hear him!

Another.
Ay, ay, go on, Giacco!

Giacco.
There came a man dress'd like a priest——

One.
The same.

Another.
Yes, 'twas a priest.

Another.
Said I not well? ah, ah!
Trust Giacco for a tale.

Giacco.
A thin pale man——

One.
A pale thin man.

Another.
Yes, pale and spare, I say so.

Another.
Spare, very spare.

Another.
The same! the dogs snarl'd at him
As he were bones.

Giacco.
He pass'd down Duomo Street——

One.
The very street!

Another.
Yes, yes, the place, the place,
The very place—all but the name—good Giacco!

Another.
Giacco forgets a little—Yes, yes, Giacco—
(Aside).
My life on it, he means the place I say!

Giacco.
Walking down slowly——

One.
Yes, yes, walking slowly.

Another.
Right, Giacco!

Another.
Well done, Giacco.

Another.
Ay, I say so;
Oh, 'tis my story!

Giacco.
Walking down he enters
A merchant's office hard upon the quay——

One.
Wrong, Giacco!

Another.
Giacco, thou'rt beside thyself!

Another.
Blind Giacco!

Another.
Saints and angels!

Giacco.
Why, I saw him——

Another.
Giacco, thou liest!

Another.
Turn him out!

Another.
Nay! 'tis flagrant!

All.
Turn him out!

Enter a Village Schoolmaster.
Doctor Scio.
Men!

Some.
Room for the Doctor Scio!

Others.
Chair for the master, there!

Others.
Hats off! the Doctor!

All.
Room for the Doctor! Let the Doctor judge!
Take him aside, Giovanni. Tell him all!
Tell him, Giovanni!

Scio
(pompously).
Children agapete!
Well-beloved children! trouble not Giovanni!
For as of old the mild mellifluous beams
Of Cytherea on the Prince of Troy
Stole through the broken pane,—as to Endymion,
Through the crack'd casement of consenting cave,
The star-train'd goddess came; so from these wide
And vomitorial windows, belch'd your tumult
To me transgressing.

Some.
Hear him!

Others.
Well done, Scio!
Hear him!

One.
Oh learning! what a treasure thou art!

Others.
Hurrah! Speak, Doctor, speak!

Scio.
The labourer
Is worthy of his hire. Friends, what is hire?

All.
Wages!

Scio.
And when, Sirs, does the fatigate
Pellosseous, son of sudorific toil,
Receive his wage? Is it not, friends, the eve,
The sweet stipendiar eve of Saturn's day?
Burghers (to each other).
Didst hear the like? What 'tis to be a scholar!
Scio has my boy—for one.

Scio.
And shall we, friends,
Shall we degrade the majesty of Learning
Which I—which I—her infinitesimal
Exiguous representative——

Some.
Bravo,
Well said!

Scio.
Which I—her representative
Exiguous but unworthy——

Some.
No, no, Scio,
No, not unworthy.

Others.
Don't be modest, Scio;
Unworthy! bah!——

Others.
Give us the other words—
Go on, Scio, ‘infinite’——

Scio.
I say, my friends,
Shall I, the representative of Learning,
Work first and be paid after, like the plodder
In yonder field? My friends, there was a thing,
A tool, an article, friends, a utensil
Known to our fathers by the sacred names
Poculum, cantharus, carchesium, scyphus,
Cymbium, culullus, cyathus, amystis,
Scaphium, batiola, and now by us
Their children, Sirs, albeit unworthy, call'd
A cup.

All.
A cup, a cup, a cup of wine!
Well done, old Scio! hurrah! a cup of wine
Here for the doctor, oh! a cup of wine.

Enter a Stranger, who stands aside. A Burgher bows to him and speaks.
Burgher
(to Stranger).
A stranger?

Stranger.
Yes.

Burgher.
You come in good time, Sir;
Sir, you're a happy man, I give you joy, Sir;
Sir, these are times!—I take it, Sir, few men
Can gainsay that, Sir,—these are times, Sir, eh?

Stranger.
Sir, these are times.

Burgher
(pointing to Scio).
You take me, Sir, I see.
Now, Sir, behold that man. I say, Sir, mark him;
Now, Sir, you see a man, a man, Sir.

Stranger.
Sir,
I see a man.

Burgher.
Just my idea, Sir,—Sir,
I crave your further knowledge, we are friends—
Saints! how a patriot's eye—between ourselves—Sir,
A patriot's eye finds out the man of the age.

Stranger.
There is a nameless something——

Burgher.
Sir, you have it;
My own idea, Sir, from a boy—a something
Indisputably something. Yes, a something
As one might say—to speak more plainly—something,
A something, Sir,—something in the set of the ear——
Many shout.
Scio—Doctor Scio—Silence! The Doctor! Silence!

Enter Lelio, a Student.
Lelio.
Here's news, friends!

Many.
How now, Lelio?

Lelio.
Which man here
Tells the best tale?

Many.
I. I. I. I. I. I.

Lelio.
Nay, everybody! Write me up a nonsuch!
I can beat everybody. Heroes can
No more.

All.
A challenge, lads; what ho! a ring,
A ring, a ring, a ring! Champion, step out!
A ring! a ring!

A Student.
Go call thy daughter, hostess,
Here's that will make her honest.

Hostess.
Sir?

Student.
A ring.

All.
Now, Lelio, now, each man that beats thee wins
His bottle.

Lelio.
Done. You know the fair Francesca,
Count Grassi's daughter?

All.
Are we Milanese?

Lelio.
Well——

One.
Well?

Another.
Well! Nay, if she's well, Lelio,
'Tis no such story!

Lelio.
Which man has not seen
Young Roderigo Rossi?

All.
Or the sun,
The moon—a star or two—the Duomo—well?

Lelio.
Young Rossi and a priest fell out last night.

Several.
A priest—a priest—a priest—

One.
My life upon it
The fellow knows my story.

Lelio.
On this quarrel,
Our gallant Cavaliero dooms his man
To die at day-break.

Many.
By the holy pope,
A foul deed—nay, a foul deed.

One
(aside).
Ne'erth less,
By heavens I'm glad on't. This is not my story.
My priest was a true patriot.

Lelio.
At midnight——
(Count Grassi's child hath a fair face)

Several.
At midnight,
Count Grassi's child hath a fair face! Fie, Lelio;
Why what a traitor art thou!

Lelio.
Attend, I say!
Bold Rossi's lewdness is a proverb——

Several
(pour badiner).
Hold,
Lelio, for pity—there are bachelors here—
We are not all companions in misfortune!
For pity, Lelio!

Lelio.
You that shout for pity,
If you be Pity's followers, do her now
Your best allegiance. Good friends, I, her quæstor,
Claim tribute from you. A few tears will pay it.
Listen. The young Francesca, at the price
Of her fair body, bought the captive's life;
The priest is free. Do not cry out. Young Rossi
Craved instant payment. She in her superb
High loveliness, whose every look enhanced
The ransom, sent him from her, glad to grant
Another maiden hour for prayer and tears.
Francesca wore a poniard. She is now
A maid for ever.

Hostess
(to one standing by).
How is that, Sir?

Student
(aside).
Hush!
Dead!

Several.
'Tis a woful story. Poor Francesca!

Scio.
Requiem æternam dona eis Domine!

Several.
Amen. Amen.

Hostess
(aside).
Dead! 'tis against my conscience;
Dead! and the Signor Rossi! why a comelier
Walks not Milan. Dead—nay, I couldn't have done it!
Well, well, there be hard hearts that slight their blessings.
So comely a young man! The saints preserve me!
Nay, 'twas a sinful blindness.

Lelio.
How now, hostess,
Some wine, some wine; wine, wine.

Several.
More wine; now, Lelio,
Who was this monk?—

Lelio.
Fill up your glasses, comrades,
Sorrow is thirsty fellowship—eh, hostess?

Several.
Lelio—now, Lelio—name, name, name!

Others.
This priest,
This lady-killing priest!

Lelio
(to one).
Hast thou forgotten
A dance with Ginevrà at eve? A priest—

One
The same?

Lelio.
The same.

One.
Vittorio Santo? speak!

Another.
Santo?

Another.
Vittorio Santo?

Lelio.
What! Vicenzo
Barnabà! Ah Tomaseo! are ye also
Of Nazareth? Well done! tell you my story.

Many.
Lelio—hear Lelio—

Others.
Hear!

Lelio.
It was this Santo.
Dost thou mind, Giacchimo, how, deftly feigning
Sorrows about a grave, he won our ears
And prick'd us on to virtue with the sword
Of our own sympathies? With such shrewd warfare—
Proteus for transformation—Briareus
For head and hands—this strange campaigner carries
The fire and sword of his hot argument
From cot to palace, plain to mountain-top.
The merchant at his ledger, lifting eyes
Bloodshot with lack of sleep—for last night blew—
Sees him beside his desk at close of day,
And thinks the lamp burns dimmer, and believes
The untold loss already. The pale priest,
Opening his silent lips with such an omen
That the faint listener starts, relates how some
Great galleon, gallant on her homeward way—
A floating Ind, mann'd by the pride of Europe—
Storm'd by a scallop fleet of naked pirates,
Bestrews their savage shores, and makes each rock
Arabia. With keen eyes catching the throes
Of his now gasping auditor, the tale
Our stern tormentor fashions so astutely,
That each new fear, enduing, strains it to
Its several shape. Watching each rising hope,
He stings it mad with some especial horror,
And by a track of anguish feels his way
Straight to his victim's heart. In that worst moment
The messenger of doom assumes the angel!
Looks that evangelise, eyes that beam light
Into the soul, till every dead hope glitters
Like a crown'd corpse; a moment's shining silence,
Slow placid words that hurry to a torrent;
Then the gulf-stream of passion! high command,
Entreaty, reason, adjuration;—all
The martial attitudes of a grand soul.
The lavish wealth of infinite resource!
Diamonds thrown broad-cast for denaros!—ay,
That Argosy he spoke of, scatter'd on
The maddest waves of rushing rapid, surging
Headlong through foaming straits, above, below,
Tossing the wealth of kingdoms, hurtles not
With such tumultuous riches as the flood
Of his strange eloquence. And then the scared
And half-drown'd trader—lifting his blind thought
Above the waters, that with sudden ebb
Left him in silence—finds he is alone.
Of all the golden wreck, his struggling soul
Holds fast but this—Rome is that glorious galleon,
Now stranded and forlorn: her freight of honours
Strew'd up and down the world, purpling strange snows
And loading cold barbaric winds with incense.
That night, at home, the merchant tells his story,
Wherewith, still later, madam at her glass
Stirs sleepy Abigail. Sweet Abigail,
Still nearer midnight, garrulously coy,
'Twixt amorous Corydon and her warm charms,
Weaves the gauze meshes of the thrice-told tale.
Next morn on 'Change betimes the story stalks
By blind deaf faces, as a spirit might walk
Among the wooden gods of the sea-kings.
The hour of contract over,—the fierce edge
Of morning appetite now turn'd with gold—
Nature appeased, and the commercial soul
In jolly after-dinner complaisance
Relax'd and smiling,—prosperous ears attend
The merchant never weary of recounting.
‘Insured, Sir?’ ‘I fear not.’ ‘Heyday, heyday,
A sorry venture!’ Then the angry hum
Subsiding, all surround the man of facts.
Sage heads shook much that day. Municipal
Grave brains plagued with strange phantoms, never yet
Free of the city, in the sacred gloom
Of shades official, ached, and retched, and heaved,
To throw the incivic innovation off:
And in the pangs of labour crying out,
Betrayed the parentage. So this strange priest
Made his foes preach for him, till all Leghorn
Hung on his lips. With bold incessant presence
Whereto no shrine is sacred, no stern fastness
Strong, no offended majesty majestic,
No sinner excommunicate, no saint
Holy, no Dives rich, no Lazarus poor,
No human heart unworthy—this strange man—
This cowl'd evangelist, that Monk is not—
(For he preach'd yesterday that not a bare
Untempled spot, unblest, unconsecrate
On earth, but is sufficient sanctuary
For the best hour of the best life;—no cloud
In any heaven so dark that a good prayer
Cannot ascend,)—this polyglot of prophets,
Roams like a manifold infection, shedding
Through the sick souls of men the strange disease
Of his own spirit. Not an art or calling
Wherein men work'd in peace, but at his touch
Spreads the indefinite sorrow. In the field
Halting the team of early husbandman,
He chides him for the German weeds that choke
The Roman crop of glory; bids him seek
The plough of Cincinnatus, and bring forth
Into the sunshine of the age, that soil,
That old heroic soil whence patriots spring!
Hard by the wondering swain, sequester'd close
By summer elms and vines, the village forge
From cheerful anvil all the long day rings
The chimes of labour. Thence at winter night
Shines to the distant villager the star
Of home; to which the homeless wayfarer,
Trudging with fainting steps the storm-vex'd moor,
Turns hopeless eyes, as to the vestal fire
Of sweet impossible peace. Thereby the priest
Pausing, the sturdy smith suspends his stroke
Before the reverend stranger; who accepts
The homage with such liquidating grace
That the stunn'd peasant, unabsolved of duty,
Renews obeisance. Then the pale intruder
Striding some stool, with hand upon the bellows,
Moves the slack fire, and bids the work go on:
Cursing the slave who stoops for prince or priest
The dignity of toil. To the rough music
Setting strong words, he sends with easy skill
Wrongs, hopes, and duties trooping through the soul
Of the stout smith, and there on his own smithy
Blows the rough iron of his heart red-hot.
Seizing the magic time, with sudden hand
He stamps him to the quick;—‘Patriot! the hour
Is come to beat our ploughshares into swords,
Our pruning hooks to spears!’ The brand driven home,
The apostle vanishes, lest weaker words
Efface the sign.

A Student.
Lelio! dost thou remember——

Lelio.
I know thy thought,—the shopman of the
vale——

Student.
Nay, Lelio——

Lelio.
Now I have it—the stout Tuscan,
With wain o'erloaded——

Student.
Not he——

Lelio.
Ah! the maid
Who sang in German——

Student.
No——

Lelio.
Stay! she who wore
The cameo victory——

Student.
Now hear me, Lelio.
When he saw——

Lelio.
What! when meeting country boys
With laurel and acanthus——

Student.
No! the saints!

Lelio.
True, true, the tale of the parch'd field beside
The aqueduct——

Student.
Wrong! Holy Mary!

Lelio.
Well——

Student.
Peace, I say, Lelio!

Lelio.
Sometime hence, dear friend;
I am not weary. 'Twas of the round tower
Of Vesta, whence the epicurean Time,
Fresh from the feasts of Rome, took but the heart,
And all is there but the celestial flame
That consecrated all——

Student.
Have thine own way,
But were I Lelio——

Lelio.
Tut, I know thy story.
'Twas of the eve when, meeting by the way
An ancient pedagogue, whose thin, time-worn,
And reverend features (whereabout grey locks
Hung lank as weeds), great names went in and out,
Mournfully populous, like olden heroes
Haunting some Roman ruin; our fierce patriot——
Say I not well?

Student.
Hast thou in truth forgotten
The village priest?

Lelio.
The priest? our priest says little
To alb and stole—whether from shrewd self-knowledge,
Or feeling that all tyrants are familiars,
And that those proud prætorians who subverted
The commonwealth of God would lord it over
An earthly heritage—therefore, good comrade,
Owe us thy tale.

Student.
One day——

Lelio.
One moment first,
(‘One day’ can spare it). I shall ne'er forget,
When falling in upon a lone wild road
With a fat monk, our patriot, for sheer lack
Of occupation, challenges a war
Of words. Good saints! a firework by a fountain!
A schoolboy's freak played out with cannon balls
And rotten apples! As our Santo's lightnings
Through the thick haze of t'other's sanctity
Singed brow and beard, heavens! how the reverend eyes
(Wrestling with wrinkles and siesta-time)
Did struggle to a stare. And the good man,
Heaving his flesh, buzzed like a portly fly
In thundery weather; our relentless Santo
At parting gives him for to-morrow's text
The whip of knotted cords that cleansed the temple.
‘Preach, priest,’ he cries, ‘that from these sacred bounds,
This outraged temple Italy, each Roman
Scourge those that sell the sacrilegious doves
Of perjured peace. O'erturn, o'erturn,’ he cries,
‘The tables of those German money-changers,
That make this house of prayer a den of thieves.’
Assaulting thus with rude declaim those ears
Dull with the gentle lowings of fat kine
And soft excitements of refectory-bell,
Our Santo leaves him, ere the saint disturb'd,
In doubt of man or demon, could revolve
Upon his axis.

All.
Ah, ah! Well done, Lelio!

Lelio.
Our friar on this——

One.
Why the saints smite thee, Lelio!
Now, Lelio!—Eh? nay, Sirs, as I'm alive
This was my story!

Another.
Give thee joy of it,
Old Giacco, 'twas a sorry tale, now mine——

Lelio.
Friends! we grow solemn. Wine, I say. A song,
A song.

One.
Ay, something loyal——

Lelio.
Worthy friends,
We should do well to purify the air
Whereof these tales were made; forced by our lips
Into unwilling treason.

One.
Lelio!

Another.
Shame!

Lelio.
Therefore, my merry boys, I vote a ditty,
A well-affected ditty—nay, some say
'Twas writ by Metternich and Del Caretto,
At Schoenbrun after dinner. Nay, no groans!
Sweet friends, no groans! Nay, hear me, friends.

Shouts from many.
Down with him!

Lelio.
No Carbonaro——

Many.
Down with him!

Lelio.
I call it
The triple crown, or the three jolly kings,
The Devil——

Some.
Hear!

Some.
Hurrah!

Lelio.
The Devil——

All.
Hurrah!

Lelio.
The Pope and the Kaiser.

All.
Hurrah! Lelio! Lelio!
True to the backbone still! Up with him, boys!
Chair him! a hall! a hall! now, Lelio, now!
Shout cheerly, man—here's thunder for a chorus!

SCENE VI.

A Plain. A Cottage.
The Monk (Vittorio Santo). Two Children (a Boy and Girl). Their Father and Mother (both young) sit at the cottage door. The Monk draws near.
The Monk
(aside).
This is the spot. From hence my eye unseen
Commands their cottage. Hither have I fared
Five times at this same hour, and five times learn'd
To love my nature better. Here I stood,
And felt, when passing gales in snatches bore me
Their evening talk, as if some wayward child
Had pelted me with flowers. She is a poet,
Or in or out of metre. Rome must have her.
A mother too, 'tis well; then there is one thing
The poet will serve. Ah! art thou forth to-day,
Thou little tyrant, that shalt rule for me?
My faith! a lovely boy! holy St. Mary!
Hark how he carols out his royalty,
And, born a sovereign, rules and knows it not.
The father must be mine too; he hath bone
And sinew, and—if the eye's gauge deceive not—
A soul as brawny. Heavy deeds demand
Such carriers. I will win or lose this night.
Let me draw near.

[The Children are sporting. The Girl hides among myrtles, and sings.
Girl.
Whither wingest thou, wingest thou, winny wind;
Where, winny wind, where, oh where?

Boy
(singing).
My sister, my sister, I flit forth to find,
My sister, my sister, the orange-flow'r fair!

Girl.
Since thy songs thy soft sister seek,
What wouldst with her? say, oh say.

Boy.
Oh, to pat her pearl-white cheek,
And court her with kisses all day!

[The Child bursts from her hiding place, and the Children chase each other over the plain.
The Mother.
Husband! the music in my soul would chord
Most sweetly with thy voice. Take down thy lute.

The Father.
Nay, Lila; bid me not do violence
To this calm sunset. List that golden laughter,
Hark to our children! There is music like
The hour. From each to each the heart can pass,
And know no change.

The Mother.
Sing me a song about them,
Kind husband. Sing that song I made for thee,
When once, on a sweet eve like this, we watch'd
As now our joyous babes—I blessing them,
Thou marvelling, with show of merry jest,
How they could be so fair.

The Father.
Even as thou wilt,
Dear Lila. If the spirit of these moments
Deem my voice sacrilege, let him forgive
The singer for the poet.

He sings.
[The Monk draws near.
The Father.
Lila! the same pale priest we saw last eve!

The Mother.
Good husband, bid him here. The dust of travel
Tells that his way was weary. Holy Sir,
Will't please you sit with us? The herds are milk'd.
Our bread is brown, but honest.

The Monk.
Do not ask me.
Are you not happy?

The Wife.
Happy! reverend father?
We thank God, and say yes. This day five years
One whom I saw for the first time, through tears,
Came with the flowers. When they began to fade
How my heart sicken'd! But God call'd him not
With them. And though the snows of winter came
He stayed, and held enough of summer with him
To fill my house. Should I not be most happy?
Look on my boy, my merry one! Good father,
Which of the angels do they miss in heaven?
Ofttimes at mass I press him close, and tremble
To the sweet voices, lest at ‘in excelsis’;
He should remember, and go back.

The Monk.
Oh mother,
That art, and art not, kind! 'Tis a brave boy.

The Mother.
And then he is so gentle and so fond,
And prattles to me sometimes in strange wisdom,
And asks of me in such sweet ignorance,
That teaching him I weep; oft, oft, for joy,
But oft for very grief, that each task leaves
One tiny question less.

The Monk.
'Tis a sweet child.

The Father.
Sir Priest, thou knowest well how poor an image
A mother's love will idolize; but this
Dear boy hath put a woman's heart in me,
He is so good, so dutiful—

The Mother.
And yet
When he kneels by me at his innocent prayer,
Oft I look down and feel that I have need
To learn of him.

The Monk.
Let me bless him.

The Father.
My son,
The priest would bless thee on thy birth-day; boy,
Come bend thee at his knee.

The Monk.
Thou little child,
Thy mother's joy, thy father's hope—thou bright,
Pure dwelling where two fond hearts keep their gladness—
Thou little potentate of love, who comest
With solemn sweet dominion to the old,
Who see thee in thy merry fancies charged
With the grave embassage of that dear past,
When they were young like thee—thou vindication
Of God—thou living witness against all men
Who have been babes—thou everlasting promise
Which no man keeps—thou portrait of our nature,
Which in despair and pride we scorn and worship—
Thou household-god, whom no iconoclast
Hath broken,—if I knew a parent's joys,
If I were proud and full of great ambitions,
Had haughty limbs that chafed at ill-borne chains,
If I had known a tyrant's scorn and felt
That vengeance though bequeathed is still revenge,
I would pray God to give me such a son!
Therefore, thou little one, mayst thou sleep well
This night: and, for thy waking, may it be
Where there are neither kings nor slaves. Of all
Thy playmates, mayst thou be the first to die—

The Mother shrieks.
Ah! holy father!

The Monk.
Smitten in the bud
Mayst thou fade on the stalk that had no thorns
To save thee from the spoiler—mayst thou—

The Mother.
Mercy!

The Father.
Fiend! murderer!

The Monk.
Did you not bid me bless him?

The Mother.
My boy! my happy one! my brighteyed babe!

The Father.
Thou hooded demon! thou hell-priest!

The Monk.
Be patient.
I will take off the blessing; but hear me,
And you shall bid me pray for it again.

The Mother.
Blessing? 'Tis blessing to behold him smile
With his bright, innocent, unconscious eyes,
Which thou wouldst close for ever!

The Monk.
Is that blessing?
Too happy mother! how thou lov'st to weep!
Come hither, child. Nay, daughter, tremble not!
He is a Roman, and can fear no man—
A child, and dreads not death.

The Mother.
Good padre,
Pity us.

The Father.
Priest!

The Mother.
Be silent, he is moved,
Perchance he was a father.

[A long pause, the Monk covers his head with his mantle.
The Monk
(looking up).

[They kneel. The Monk reads.
The Monk.
And I heard a voice,
A voice from heaven, which said unto me, ‘Write,
Blessed are the dead.’;
[He pauses.
Rise up! I had forgotten!
Forgive me!

The Mother.
Reverend father!

The Father.
Friend, what say'st thou?

The Monk.
That if thou wert what that proud man should be
Who calls this child ‘my son,’; this land ‘my country,’;
Thou hadst cried out ‘Amen!’;

The Father.
Sir Priest, so please you
To speak in riddles—read them.

The Monk.

The Mother.
Oh that thou wouldst!

The Monk.

[The vesper bell sounds from the distant convent.
Ave Maria!
The Mother
(throwing herself passionately to the ground).
Ave Maria! Happy evermore,
Oh Mater Unigeniti—save, save,
Oh save my child!

The Father.
Ave Maria! Queen
Of judgment that went forth to victory!
Remember desolation blights the hills
That slew the Crucified! Mother avenged!
If my first-born must be like thine, grant vengeance
Like thine!

The Mother.
If it must be—

The Monk.
Ave Maria! say
It shall not be! Thou who didst bear salvation!
Oh Virgin! thou who in thy breast didst carry
The fate of worlds unfainting—give, give stength
To these!

The Father and Mother.
Oh Mother, pity us!—

The Monk.
Oh Mother,
Pity our country! Mater benedicta!
Thou who three days didst watch a tomb in tears,
Pity our vigil of a thousand years,
And bid the dead arise!

The Father and Mother.
Oh Queen of sighs,
Look down on us from thy fair heaven with eyes
Softer than evening!

The Mother.
Mater casta, pia,
Quondam afflicta—take him to thy skies!
Even what thou wilt for me, but oh, for him
Hast thou no place among thy seraphim?
Is he not thine? Thou gavest him. Take, oh take
The bright gift back, for a sad mother's sake,
Oh Mother!

The Monk.
Ah?

The Father.
Amen!

The Monk.
Ave Maria!

[They rise.
The Father.
Priest, hast thou no Amen?

The Monk.
Did I not tell you
That you should crave my blessing, though it fell
Black as a curse?

The Mother.
Alas!

The Monk.
Says the priest ill
Who prays the mother's prayer?

The Mother.
Be merciful!

The Monk.
Nay, be you merciful. I look upon
This gentle boy, and every blushing feature
Of his young beauty cries for mercy—

The Mother.
Priest,
If thou art false in all things as in this,
God help thee. I have been a tender mother!

The Monk.
Thou filiocide! Why should he die? This land,
Hath it no place for him? This Roman sunshine,
Doth it fall strangely on his cheek?

The Boy.
Oh, mother,
Tell him they love me.

The Mother.
Hush! my beautiful;
What is there loves thee not?

The Monk.

The Mother.
Oh father, save him!
Bid me die—on my knees—

The Father.
Peace. Priest, the cloud
Is silent till it lightens; dost thou take me?

The Monk.
Thou hast a fearless eye.

The Father.
Priest, try my heart!

The Monk.
Ah, traitor! what? 'tis well. Yes, he for whom
That fair boy prattles hath a lifelong preacher
No father yet sat under unconverted.
We men are calm or hurricane. The heart
Fills silently, and at the last wrong bursts.
He laughs his merry creed out at all hours,
And day and night looks treason.

The Father.
Come the day
When deeds shall back his looks!

The Monk.
Well said, brave Roman!
Thy hand! and we are brothers. Shall we brook
To see this Italy our fathers left us
Held for an Austrian garden?

The Father.
Noble priest,
Some say the garden bears strange fruit ere long,
But the old soil is crop-sore, and craves fatting
With German blood.

The Monk.
Ah?

The Father.
Hast thou heard some whispers
The wind brings from Sardinia? Is it well?

The Monk.
All things are well, but silence and endurance.

The Father.
Bend here! the very spider on the wall
Must not hear this—

The Monk.
(Ay, what so pitiful,
So loathsome, but it may connive with kings?)

The Father.
Hark in thine ear. The jolly lords of Naples,
Florence, Turin, Verona, ay, Modena,
And some too near to name, ride bravely,—eh?
What if the horse kick?

The Monk.
Ah?

The Father.
This is fair weather;
Worse grubs have grown to butterflies. How now,
If these same Duchies spread their wings Republics?
What then, my Carbonaro? Is it well?

The Monk.
'Tis well. The poorest living face hath grace
Beside a death's-head. That fierce king did well
Who slew the priests of Baal, hew'd down his groves,
And spoil'd his altars. But that king did better
Who crown'd Moriah. 'Tis a zealot's faith
That blasts the shrines of the false god, but builds
No temple to the true.

The Father.
Ay, what is Truth?
Pilate lacks answer.

The Monk.
The bold man like thee,
Who lays his life in a strange hand——

The Father
(starting).
Ah, Priest!
His life—how now?

The Monk.
Jestest, my gentle Roman?
Wronged men like us, sworn to such deeds as ours,
Leave courtly phrases when they speak of treason.
Alas, poor Italy! to tell his fortune
To whom a priest's lips can bring home rebellion,
Merits no sorcerer's fee. A truce to trifling.
What wasted words are these! Thou art a father,
Have I not said to thee this boy that is
To die, may live—what more?

The Father.
No more. Sir Priest,
Thou takest me ill. There is no wild rebellion
So fierce I have not fire enough to light it.
If I had rather chosen to be free,
Of all men—so. Thou hast my faith, who holdest
My halter.

The Mother.
And, by Heaven, thou hast it, Priest,
Though we were freer than a thousand winds!
Ay, and our lives a million million times
Lived and died over, so thou wilt but save
My child.

The Monk.
Have I not said it? Wherefore, friends,
Is this unseemly turbulence of passion?
Did you not call me to your solemn council?
Had I not told you how my brother died?
Had you not wept with vision of those pangs,
Which in that boy's face yet shall rack your eyes?——

The Mother.
Shall? Oh, my father! Oh, my father!

The Monk.
Shall.
He who would conquer kings, himself must be
The first king conquer'd. Shall a rebel start
To hear rebellion? Shall I have my counsel
Cried up and down the earth, like the small will
Of vulgar majesty? He who would creep
To sleeping game is silent. Will they stand
Firm, think you, at the judgment and the scaffold,
Who start beneath the lintel of their homes,
And rave at evening chat? No. He must die.

[The mother starts up, seizing a knife that lies near
The Mother.
Priest! I am but a woman, and a weak one!
I think thee faithful, and in that thought bless thee.
I am a wife, a wife, Priest, and a true one;
I think him brave, and in that thought revere him;
But let me doubt ye—only let me doubt ye—
And I would wash that hearthstone in your blood,
If but the poorest spatter on the wall
Would save my child!

The Monk
(aside).
Then by that chain I lead thee,
Wild lioness.
(Aloud.)
There heaves a bosom meet
To suckle Freedom. Calm thee, Roman mother,
That yet shalt smile in Rome. The day may come
To strike; till then seal up thine own hot lips,
As thou wouldst seal thy foe's. Be true, a hero
Shall call thee ‘mother!’ Fail but in thy fealty
To the least word of mine, my heaviest grief
Is bliss beside thy lightest. Peace. This seal
Makes the bond perfect. Now to calmer counsel.
Thou say'st, brave Roman, that our lords ride fiercely,
That the steed chafes already—see! he throws them.
Who vaults into the saddle? Every flock
Has slain its pigmy swain—salvete greges!
But, patriot, who shall lead the sheep to pasture,
And keep the wolf at bay?

The Father.
Each separate state
Must crown the sovereign people.

The Monk.
By what name
Will men speak, think ye, of that seven-hill'd city,
Within whose catacombs dominion sleeps,
And in whose ruins Time himself walks lightly,
Lest she should stir below?

The Father.
Rome.

The Monk.
And the rest,
How do you name them?

The Father.
By the names they found
Noble enough to strike in; thus, Milan.

The Monk.
And why? Is the sky bluer at Milan
Than where we stand? Are the clouds red at noon?
Or by what mystic omen doth the world
Call for this christening? Doth Dame Nature, old,
And yearning to be fruitful in her dotage,
Breed names, and call them children?

When you dream
Of our Italian fatherland, it glitters
With half a hecatomb of palaces,
Each royal. Your free heart is sad. You frown.
Strike off their crowns. Salute them commonweals,
And wake up shouting ‘Glory!’ How now, Roman,
If some strong arm stretching from sea to sea
Sweep all your pasteboard kickshaws to the ocean,
And leave us the broad field of Italy
To build up Rome?
Marvel not, gentle friends,
Sprung out of yesterday, poor hearts, and growing
Like creeping plants, even to the size and fashion
Of what ye lean on—marvel not that we
Who worship Freedom with one soul, adore her
In different deity. As I have told you,
Dark fanes and reverend trophies, stones that might
Be portals to the world; the fossil limbs
By which we build the giants of old time;
Grey wonders stranger for decay; strange fragments
Of forms once held divine, and still, like angels,
Immortal everywhere; lone hermit columns,
Whereto the ideal hath no space to add
The pile they bore; stern pediments that look'd
On altars where antipodes burnt incense,
And the three arms of the great globe piled up
Their several tribute; all the sacred shades
Which the great Past receding from the world
Casts out of heaven on earth;—these and like these,
The high, the deep, the eternal, the unbounded,
Were sponsors to my soul: and if my thought,
Where your more nice and neoteric fancy
Labours with townships, deals out continents,
Think it no marvel. Listen.
The sunrise
Of that dread day which found me brotherless,
Saw a pale face on a low bed. Despair
Gave life by taking it. That evening's sun
Fell on the empty pallet, and beside it
An arm'd man, flush'd to wildness.
Lost, alone,
Every sweet structure of my heart in heaps,
With the one terrible shock; mazed, ignorant
Of all things but the one which cast them forth,
The desolation in my soul cried out,
And rushing to the ruins I fell down,
The darkest ruin of all. I knelt and wept,
And was a child before them, with the madness
Of a man's heart. I fell upon my face.
Strange sleep possess'd me. Through the hot short night,
Across the hotter desert of my brain
My life went past. All seasons new and old,
All hours of day and night, all thoughts, fears, fancies,
Born on this spot, met as in after-death
About me; and of each my tatter'd heart
Begg'd healing and found none. At each new face
I look'd up wild with hope, and look'd down fierce
With chafed expectance. Then I rose and cursed
All hope, all thought, all knowledge, all belief,
And fell down still believing. With each hour
In my spent soul some lingering faith went out,
Woes that began in fire had burnt to blackness,
The very good within me had grown grim,
The frenzy of my shipwreck'd heart had thrown
Its last crust overboard—then, then, oh God!
Then in the midnight darkness of my passion,
The veil was rent which hid the holy of holies,
And I beheld and worshipp'd. Mad despair
Rung out the desperate challenge—‘What art thou,
Unpitying presence! which for years beside
These stones hast stood before me, pass'd me, touch'd me,
Shook my blind sense, and seal'd my eyes from seeing?
Tell me, that I may curse thee!’
The sun rose.
Forth towards me as in awful adjuration
Each ruin stretch'd appealing shades. There came
Soft lightning on my soul, and by a voice
Ineffable, and heard not with the ears,
‘Rome.’ At that sound a thousand thousand voices
Spread it through all things. Each imperial column,
Each prone grey stone, touch'd by the eloquent winds,
Heard it and gave it back. Trees, woods and fountains
In musical confusion, leaves, buds, blossoms—
Even to small flowers unseen, with voices smaller
Than treble of a fay—atoms of sound
Whereof a thousand falling on one ear,
The unwitting sense should count them troubled silence—
Birds, brooks, and waterfalls,—all tongues of dawn,
The very morning hum of summer time,
Swell'd the sweet tumult; early mists that lay
Silent on hill-tops, vocal in the sun
Roll'd off like waves of voices, the stirr'd air
Sung with bright ecstasy. Down came the thunder,
Like a vast hull cleaving the sea of sound,
That lash'd up louder; then the hills cried out,
And emulous the valleys; all the earth
Shook with the sounding ardour, and methought
My flush'd soul, drunk with zeal, leap'd high and shouted,
Rome! With that name, incomprehensible beauty
Fill'd the still gratulate air from earth to heaven,
And knowing I knew not. Even as one dead
I fell. As though that one great sight accomplish'd
All consciousness, and the progressive sense
Reaching the goal stood still.
Ere I awoke,
The sun had mounted the proud throne of noon,
Received the homage of the world, and stept
From his high-place well-pleased.
Calm, brave, serene,
Refresh'd as from a sleep of ages, weak
As a birth-weary mother, but yet strong
In cast-out sorrows, I stood up and gazed
With long looks of sweet wonder. The fierce craving
In my lank hungry soul had ceased. The thirst
That burn'd my heart was quench'd. The mystic yearning
For something ever near, and ever far,
That made my life one dream of wasting fever,
Was over. All those indistinct strange voices
Wherein, like waters underground, great truths
Were heaving in my heart, and lash'd its sides
To bursting; those dim tones wherein, like fragrance
From troubled flowers at midnight, unseen balm
Went up in my dark soul, all the forerunners,
The thousand messengers by which this night
Had told me it would come,—all partial knowledge
Before the consummation fell away
As things that had no office; wither'd up
Like blossom on the fruit. Thus it must be
That noble man who deems his nature born
As vast as truth, must sweat, and toil, and suffer,
And overcome—enduring. When the heart
Adds a new planet to its heaven, great portents
Clash the celestial influence; strange signs
Of coming dread, mysterious agencies,
And omens inconceivable convulse
The expectant system, while the stranger sails
Still out of sight in space. Dim echoings
Not of the truth, but witnessing the truth—
Like the resounding thunder of the rock
Which the sea passes—rushing thoughts like heralds,
Voices which seem to clear the way for greatness,
Cry advent in the soul, like the far shoutings
That say a monarch comes. These must go by,
And then the man who can outwatch this vigil
Sees the apocalypse. Oh that first hour
Within the Eden of a quiet soul!
Oh for that bounteous hour, to him whose youth,
Bred up in grief's sad penury, hath found
Joy's daily pittance all too poor to lay
One pleasance by; oh that Pierian hour
When first the plenteous life o'erwelling sends
Its irrigating streams before the face
Of the young hope, and decks, in frondent distance,
To-morrow with the verdure of to-day.
That hour when first the slipping foot grows firm
Upon some plot of present, and we gaze
From the sufficient rock with softening eyes
Across the green sweet pastures of the future,
And for the first time dare to look on them
As heritage. How the exulting thoughts,
Like children on a holiday, rush forth
And shout, and call to every humming bee,
And bless the birds for angels! Oh that hour!
In the reflected sunshine of remembrance
My heart is melting. Twilight and the dews
Proclaim me parlous. 'Tis a sorry string
That, being struck, is silent. Farewell Romans.
Meet me to-morrow here. This is no mood
To plan stern deeds. Farewell. Remember, courage,
Truth, silence. If you fail in either, look
Upon your boy.

SCENE VII.

A lonely Spot. The turf-grown site of some old Roman Amphitheatre.
A meeting of Minstrels. An aged Bard presides. The Monk enters.
The Monk
(to a Minstrel).
Sir,
I have walk'd far and crave a seat.

Minstrel
(to another).
His reverence
Is weary and would sit. Is it against
The statutes of our order?

Second Minstrel.
Holy Sir,
There are good feet that do not walk Parnassus.
Behold us here a minstrel convocation,
And deem it no irreverence if we say,
That in that company of bards a priest
Lacks civic rights.

The Monk.
Sir, thou art not yet free
Of that most holy guild. Thy soul hath yet
To learn the instinctive flight which cleaves the air
Of immortality. I do perceive
As yet it wings by sight. The dove that bears
The poet's message starts from that pure height
Where earthly fashions fade. Let common eyes
Read men in frock and cowl. The creeping thing
That harbours in the bark knows not the region
Where the fruit hangs. I hoped, Sirs, to find here
A nobler estimation.

Another Minstrel.
And thou shalt.

Others.
Bravo! Well said. Hear Giulio!

Another.
This guitar,
Its face, Sir Priest, like mine, is brown with age;
Find me the newest dainty from Cremona
That dares a bar with it!

Another.
Or mine, and yet
'Twas the sole heritage my grandsire left.

Another.
Would we, Sir Priest, exchange these twisted entrails
For chords of gold?

Another.
Faith, I would string my lute
With hangman's hemp, if it made music.

Others.
Ay,
And I. And I. And I.

The President.
Sir and good father,
You see us here a humble company—
I speak the language of the world, Sir, nor
Affirming nor denying—(the wayfarer
Of many lands is not responsible
For each vernacular)—Sir, in what stature
We may be seen by the renewing angel
Some few years hence I say not, but you see us
Being what we are, met to pursue an art
Lightly esteem'd, but which to name divine
Is not the filial rapture of a son,
Since in the change of time it hath not changed;
Indigenous to all the earth. A spirit
Evoked by many, but a bound familiar
To no magician yet. The equal tenant
Of loftiest palace and of lowliest cot,
Treading the rustic and the royal floor
To the same step and time. In every age,
With all the reverence that man claims as man,
Preaching to clouted clown, and with no more
To thronèd kings. The unrespective friend—
In such celestial wise as gods befriend—
By turns of haughtiest monarch, humblest swain;
And with impartial love and power alike
Ennobling prince and peasant. Giving all,
Receiving never. What else makes a god?
What human art looks so divine on earth?
And, as you tell us, seraphs in high heaven
Find nothing worthier. Sir, accept me well,
Let not these lutes, pipes, harps, and dulcimers,
And outward signs of the musician's trade,
Mis-teach you of us. Reverend Sir, believe not
That—priests of Harmony—our service knows
One only of her temples. Sir, we hope
One day to serve her where the ears of flesh
Cannot inherit; where material sounds
Enrobe no more her pure divinity.
And we, uncumber'd by the aids of sense,
Shall see, and in the silent universe
Adore her. Holy Sir, each minstrel here
Is poet also.

The Monk.
Canst thou tell me, friend
What 'tis to be a poet?

President.
Such the theme
Of this day's contest.

The Monk.
Let me strike a string
In such a strife.

President.
Read thou this riddle for us,
And, father, this my chair I abdicate,
And crown thee king of bards.

The Monk.
Nay, friend, forbear—
Prithee no kings. I would believe, good brother,
All honest here. Have you a kind harp, friends,
That for a stranger's sake will do sweet duty
In unaccustomed hands?

One.
Take mine.

Another.
Or mine.

Another.
Or mine.

Another
(aside).
Now, Sackcloth!

Another
(aside).
Look to hear Apollo
Discourse Church music!

Another
(aside).
To the buttery-hatch,
Ye strolling thrummers. 'Tis alms-giving day,
My life the godly almoner is good
At broken victuals. How many stale masses,
Crusts scriptural and classic bones——

Another.
Fie, Henri.
Thy wanton ditty!

Henri.
Ingrate! wot I not
The priest was coming?

Another
(aside).
Hush, clean ears, clean ears,
A psalm at least!

Another.
Surely the Song of Songs.

Henri.
Ay, but no Solomon's.

Others.
Friends, friends, friends,
Silence.

The Monk sings.
[Here the Monk ceases to sing.

President.
Victor, hail!
How say you, friends—a triumph?

Many.
Crown him, crown him!

The Monk.
Good friends, fair brothers, how have I deserved this?
Whose chattels have I seized, whose hearth profaned,
Whom have I slain, whose daughter have I ravish'd,
That you should cry of crowns?

President.
Sir, reverend Sir,
This chair of state is yours.

All.
Ascend, ascend!

The Monk.
Friends, brother bards, since thus you bid me call you,
With a long weary journey must I buy
The honours of this moment? When I spent
Those labours—all my wealth—they were disbursed
In the shrewd estimate that so much outlay
Invested in your wisdom could but yield
A goodly increase. Only on such venture
Prudence, the soul's stern sacristan, paid down
The perils of this pilgrimage. Which of you,
Receiving wherewithal to buy a harp,
Shall spend it on a chaplet? Which among you,
Playing the overture to some mild air
Of sweet attendance and humility,
Succeeds it with a march? My gentle friends,
Let me go even as I came,—as much
Wiser as you may please—in all things else
No wit less humble. Sir, and my good father,
Resume the place of honour. These grey hairs
And time-taught looks beseem it. I beseech you,
Speak more at length. Methinks the chorister years
Must needs chant nobly in such reverend walls.
For me, I claim the seat of a disciple,
And if in any wise I have excell'd,
And I yet fear, dear friends, you do mistake
The stature of your courtesy for that
Of my desert—reward me, ere we part,
With one more hearing.

Many shout.
Ten! Agreed. Agreed.
Agreed. Long live the Monk. Well said!

President.
Companions,
You have heard the conqueror. While we have forgotten
Our wonted duties for this episode,
The unoblivious sun hath paused not once;
Our time is far spent, and five harps are still
Unstruck. Hath any brother yet unheard
Any unbaptized child of voice or lute
Born since our last song-feast, whereon he craves
Fraternal benediction? Let each such
Stand forth.

A Minstrel.
I have a tale of rural pity,
Set in a rustic measure to such music
As the uncertain winds, and rustling leaves,
And devious sounds of night made round the heads
Of them it sings. A very simple sorrow,
To be heard only in the silent hours
It sigh'd in. Use it gently, Sirs; I call it
‘The Winter's Night.’

President.
Acquit thee, brother!

All.
Hear!

Minstrel
sings.

A Minstrel.
A grievous tale!

The Monk.
Where's he that dares to say so?
Liar! thou art not grieved. Any vile Austrian
May serve thy sister so to-morrow night,
And he that wears the longest sword among ye
Shall fear to draw it!

A young Minstrel.
Here's my blade! Show me
The bloodless German!

The Monk.
Youth! respect thy master!
Dost thou talk treason? What, boy, if the German
Be bloodless? He hath blood enough to rule thee!
Tut! sheath thy maiden sword—leave pantomime
To puppets—I but said thou art not grieved.
And I said well. Such thews as thine being grieved
Ne'er yet were idlers. Tut, tut, man, be grateful,
Thine owner feeds thee well. I never saw
A sleeker slave.

The Minstrel.
Slave!

President.
Friends, friends, friends, I pray you,
Silence. Benvolio's song!

A Minstrel.
I have a fancy
About a rose; sung on the morn I saw
My mother's first grey hair. Let your harsh thoughts
Breathe gently on it—it is overblown.

The Monk.
We are a wealthy people
In all the faculties of woe. We have
Our sighs for roses, elegies for sparrows,
And seas of salt tears for deceased gold-fish;
We eat our pet lambs in a mourning robe,
And bury gamecocks with ‘the point of war.’
And since we weep no tears for thee, my country,
It needs must be thou hast deserved thy death.
Rome, Rome! I was deceived; I thought thee murder'd.
Ay, foully, foully murder'd!

A Minstrel.
Thou hast thought
Well.

Others.
Bravo, Pietro!

Others.
Hear him!

The Monk.
This is treason.
A priest, I cannot hear my sovereign slander'd!
One word more, I denounce you!

The President.
Friends, attend!
Silence!

Vicenzo.
Friend, why is thy speech of ‘brothers?’
My brother died. I heard last night, in the dark,
How the first Christians spake to one who went
Where I shall soon behold him.

Some.
Good Vicenzo!

Others.
Hear!

Others.
Hear Vicenzo.

Vicenzo.
Clamorous sirs, you are wise.
Give your praise now. You will need all your silence
When I have sung. The men of whom I speak
Lived by the prime tradition, ere the hands
Of ages soil'd it, or the guilt that shrunk
Before that bare intolerable witness
Bound it in gems and purple. Sirs, my lay
Is simple as their faith.
[He sings.

The Monk.
‘Remember what the bounden bear!’

One.
Priest!

The Monk.
Hark that martial strain! Ye Gods, do all
Dead tongues cry out at once?

A Minstrel.
You Romans! see
The vision of Quirinus!

The Monk.
Ha, ha, ha!

The Minstrel
(sings)
[Interlude of music.

The Monk
(stepping forward).
Ye spell-bound men,
Who stand and stare each other in the face
As though it were an auspice, do you dare
Behold on earth what your translated Sire
Saw from the heavens? Didst thou not even there,
Oh hero! with thy strong humanities
Startle the impassive Gods; with mortal cries
Stir the still air of immortality,
And with thine earthly faculty of tears
Distain the empyrean?

[Silence. They whisper among themselves.
President.
Sir, and brother,
Show us this vision.

The Monk.
Doth the heart speak there?
Wot you there have been sights ere now which turn'd
The seer into stone? There have been words
Which made graves tenantless, and hunt the dead
Shrieking through hell. There have been tongues that smote
The lazy air wherein the gnat did dance,
And it hath dropp'd down molten on a soul,
And branded it for ever. You know this,
And you will hear?

A Shout.
And we will hear!

The Monk.
Your blood
Be on your heads!

A Shout.
Be on our heads and thine!

The Monk.
And mine. If ye be brothers, I shall die
With you, and if not, by you. Death is death.

[He is silent.
The President
(after awhile).
My brother, we attend thee.

The Monk.
You will hear me?
You will behold? I do beseech that man
Who owns a faint heart, friends, to bear it forth
Beyond your patriot circle; half a bowshot
Will save him. I shall speak low. By the gods,
It should be sung in whispers.

Some.
This is madness!

Some.
Hush! behold him.

Others.
Wake,
Dreamer!

The Monk.
I can see nothing in the heaven
Or earth why next year should be worse than this;
I do not learn from any sign in the sky
That you shall dance less lightly at the fair,
Or drink your pottle weaker at the wake,
Or find the wench less willing at the wedding,
Or sing less often in the castle hall,
Or think the rich man's nod a poorer fee,
Or sit less thankful at the menial's fare,
Or rear one chubby slave the less or more,
Or share their mother on worse usury
With yonder German——

Some.
Shame——

Others.
Hold!

Others.
Are we clowns?

Others.
Peace. Hear him out—hear the priest out.
Down with him.
Hear him. Hear, hear, hear, hear him out. Down with him.

The Monk.
'Tis a hard fate. As yet you are not guilty;
As yet the dull Maremma of the future
From the mephitic stagnance of the past
Stretches as unforbidden. But hear me,
And the Egyptian curse turns it to blood!
Yet you might tread it—with the march of life
Stir the pestiferous slime of days, till weak
Or sturdy vitals, soon or late, drop each
In his appointed hole. Why should I speak?
Friends, 'tis a fearful time. As yet your eyes
Have not been open'd to know good from evil.
The dread of the great hour before the fall
Gathers upon my soul. Now must I do
The miracle which paints the universe.
You stand before me here all men, all brothers,
And I must give you sight. And, seeing, he
Who is not straight transfigured to a saint,
Must blacken to a fiend. This is that water
That rots the adulteress—dare ye drink?

Some.
Now mercy!

Others.
Ay, ay, ay, to the dregs.

Others.
Pour, priest, pour, pour.

One.
S'death! do you mock us? Speak!

The Monk.
I pray you, patience,
I pray you, patience. These are times, my brothers,
When the grand Roman habit is a dress
For no man's masquerade. [They continue to shout.]

Beseech you, patience,
Patience, sweet friends! The cap of liberty
Is not a carnival wear. There are laws, friends,—
You have not read them—they are writ in German,
But they are laws. And by the laws the blush
Of shame is disaffected and forbidden,
The proud tears of a patriot are not loyal,
The thoughts of good men are against the statute;
Who would speak like a freeman must content him
To walk a chain or two more like a slave.
I break no laws. I tell you by the laws
To inherit from your sires is robbery,
To think what you are thinking is rebellion,
To take the counsel of the brave is treason,
To strike a despot on his throne is death.
I do entreat you, friends, obey the laws!
If you were heroes I must hold my peace.
I should have sinn'd already. By the laws
You should not see this sight if you were heroes;
But slaves! behold!

[The Monk sings.
[Great confusion and outcry; in the midst of which the Monk disappears.

SCENE VIII.

A Dungeon.
The Monk, Vittorio Santo, and a few of his chosen followers (among them ‘The Mother’ of Scene VI.) who are admitted to see him for the last time. They are conversing. His trial, by Austrian Court-martial, takes place at day-break.
The Monk.
I grant you there must be for every man
Some hill, plain, valley, or familiar tree,
Beside whose sweetness his young sould beholding,
Grew till the invisible within put on
The outward beauty. As your Roman mothers
Conceiving gazed upon their marble gods,
And brought forth sons like them. But if these homesteads
Contain that wealth of utterless affections,
Hopes, fears, traditions, duties, memories,
Inborn respects, instincts of good and evil,
That creature faith, that visible religion,
Which my soul utters when I say ‘My country,’
Then the best sight makes the best citizen,
The horizon of our rights shuts in with age,
Each day of weeping leaves us less to weep for,
Infirmity makes outlaws, and the blind
Are aliens everywhere.

A Youth.
Belovèd master,
For thus—sublime in the near neighbourhood
Of death—I must behold thee, even as men
On hill-tops seen against the heaven beyond
Seem giants——

The Monk.
Friend, forbear. Who made me ruler
And judge among you—or who gave thee licence
To be a slave? Beloved, thou art young: the time
May come when thou shalt tremble to create
Or to depose a master. In dominion—
The universal idol—the world worships
The unknown God. Sometimes in these last hours
I have had visions of a more divine
Iconoclast, who shall demand, ‘Will God
Be worshipp'd in the noblest image?’ Let
That pass. I feel it has not pass'd for ever.
Meanwhile learn this. Drawing near authority
To make or to unmake—Man, put thy shoes
From off thy feet, for the place where thou standest
Is holy ground.

A Friend.
Who then shall dare rebel?

The Monk.
Well ask'd, brave patriot, where is that blasphemer
Who dares rebel? Let us obey. But, Roman,
Shall we obey the living or the dead?
‘The powers that be!’ By what sign will ye know
The powers that be? My friends, we are the fools
Of eyesight and the earthly habitudes
Which cannot look aloft. Walking the plank
Of life o'er the abyss, we fear to glance
Or upward to the stars, or downward to the grave.
Our souls, yoke-strain'd, in attitude of toil
Bend earthward. Oft the unworshipp'd angel passeth
While we, with eyes fix'd on the ground from which
We came, adore his footsteps in the sand.
And God, this while, is in the heaven of heavens!
Stand! Christian! thou who hastest towards a throne
By that old pathway which our fathers wore
When a king sat there. Traitor! yon blood-stain'd
Mad sans-culotte, whose godless feet are rattling
Among kings' bones,—you vulture of the nations,
Yelling instinctive through the fateful air
To deathstruck dynasties,—yon maniac serf
Ringing his broken chains, and piling, wild
With freedom, hills of courtly slain to reach
The thronèd effigy to which thou kneelest,
And strew the imperial tatters to the wind—
That outlaw is no rebel! What art thou
Who bendest to the empty rags which once
Enrobed dominion, and with stiff knee passest
That uncrown'd presence, unbegilt, unfeather'd
Naked and full of God, whose step disturbs
The centre of the world?

Enter a Jailor secretly disposed to favour the Monk.
Jailor.
The hour, most reverend Sir,
Of which you bade me warn you, struck but now.
One more is all the grace I dare. Even that
Discover'd, would be bought with all my own.

The Monk.
Good friend, we thank thee. Did we not know, jailor,
That the time cometh when to have done this service
To these and me this night shall more avail thee
Than an imperial signet, we would speak
Of recompence. Yet wear this, [taking a ring from his finger,]
and forget not
When it was given and why. Enough. We count
The moments.

A Friend.
Show me why
It does not dawn to-morrow. 'T may suit well
Thy monk's disguise to draw the sword of the Spirit,
And wrestle not with flesh and blood, but hath
Rome one arm only? How shall he whose tongue
Fate hung awry be eloquent? My comrades,
Thus! [with a gesture].
In truth, Santo, my right worthy friend,
Methinks thou hast even offer'd up thyself
And thy good cause on a cold altar——

The Monk.
So
Did Abel.

The Friend.
Yes, 'tis well, 'tis very well,
Noble no doubt and wondrous heavenly, but——

An elder Friend.
Peace, stripling! Friend revered, thou hast wrought out
Thy chosen path to freedom. It ends here.

The Monk
(pointing up).
There. I am no such royal guest, dear Cosmo,
But I can stand a moment at the gate.

Cosmo.
We, reverent of thy martyr zeal, but hearing
A voice which calls us by a shorter road
To be cut out by hands, ask if the sword
That patriot draws be guilty?

The Monk.
When the Baptist
Call'd to repentance, did he weigh the dust
And measure out the sackcloth? Let a prophet
Wait upon silence. Who can hold his peace
Hath said his message. Things that once have dwelt
In heaven will make that prison, a man's heart,
Glad to release them. Let the seer see
And he will cry. Herein I have not seen.
The image that for me fills earth and heaven
Shuts out the shapes beyond.

A Woman
Yet, father, —oh

[_]

(‘The Mother’ in Scene VI.)

Let me still call thee so!—are there not hard
Unripen'd times, when the gold sickle of angels
Reaps not the harvest—early dawns of truth,
When we must burn a grosser light than day?

The Monk.
If the true man were of the world, and had
The sun of his great orbit in its centre,
And kept the measure of its seasons, then,
Daughter, thou hadst said well. But he who steps
Forth from the radiant chambers of the future
To show us how the unseen ages look;
He who comes forth a voluntary hostage
Of the supreme good-will of times to come;
He who grew up among your children's children,
And calls by name the years you never knew;
He who takes counsel of the things that yet
Are not, and answers with his kindling eyes
Questions ye cannot hear; he who is set
Among us pigmies, with a heavenlier stature
And brighter face than ours, that we must leap
Even to smite it,—that man, friends, must have
The self-existence of a god. From him
The poor necessities, hopes, fears, and fashions
Of the expedient Present, fall like waves
From adamant. Friends! learn a prophet's patience.
Do you remember how, in backward years,
Night after night the patient harvest-moon
Climbs her high seat above the silent fields,
In act to reign? Bating no majesty
For her great solitude. Unmann'd, below,
The golden plenty spreads, unwarn'd of change,
Ample repose. From corn-crown'd hill to hill,
From waving slope to slope, where sickly winds
Disturb'd flit blind from sudden sleep to sleep,
From calm auriferous deeps and from the broad
Pale distance, drowsy in the genial light,
From all the dull expanse of voiceless plains,
O'er which, unscared, the midnight curlew cries,
No answering horn salutes her. Smile on, pale,
Prophetic queen! Know ere thy wane, thine hosts,
Thy sounding hosts, shall darken all the vales!
Not otherwise the poet and the prophet,
The patriot and the sage.

The Youth.
This is well said.
And if we desperate men had calm or leisure
To seek the fruit of knowledge where it hangs
Through all the fair wide gardens of the soul,
Doubtless 'twere reverend idlesse. But, good Sir,
A partisan in war time must needs carry
His daily meed of duty in his hand.
We have no time—we freemen——

The Monk.
Ah, young friend,
Dost thou too die to-morrow?

Gonzalo (a friend).
Noble Sir,
Forgive him!

The Monk.
He spake not amiss, Gonzalo,
A little out of tune, no more. I thank him.
And if I could dismiss you from this last
Communion, with no ampler utterance
Than yet hath pass'd between us; if I left you
Here upon earth, and with the clouds above,
To the dim sayings of the sibylline stars,
And now, at midnight, gave your tear-blind eyes
No compass but the land-marks, which serve angels
Journeying heaven and earth, Rezzio's rebuke
Flying before would shut against my soul
The gates of paradise. I have come short
Of my high calling, friends, but (I thank God)
Not thus far. The old Castellan, just now,
Came not unbidden. I desired, my brethren,
To ask of you, this our last mutual hour,
A death gift,—if you like it—laid upon
My funeral pile. Somewhat I had to say.

A Friend
(aside).
Son.

The Son
(aside).
Father.

The Friend
(aside).
Mine own chaplain—hasten——

The Monk
(observing them).
[He drinks.
[He pauses.

A Friend.
Alas!

Another.
'Tis a hard saying,
Who can hear it?

SCENE IX.

THE TRIAL.
An Austrian Court-martial. A number of Officers as Judges. An empty chair for the President, who enters during the proceedings. A subordinate Officer prosecutes. Various Witnesses. A great crowd of Auditors. The Monk stands in the midst with an abstracted air, murmuring to himself.
Prosecutor.
The court has heard the minstrel,
Henri de Jaloux; the most reverend father,
Ghiotto Ingordo; and the rustic crowd
Brought under guard from Milan.

A Judge.
Speak, old man!

Old Goffo.
So please you, I was working in the fields;
I serve my lord our bishop—and our bull,
Mad with the fly—for, an it please your worships,
Since I drove plough, which will be thirty year
Come Martinmas, for an it please your worships,
My lord the bishop's land—not that I say it
For any ill-will to my lord the bishop—
But so it is—your worships please to ask
Giacchimo,—young Giacchimo—(poor old Giacch,
We wore him out.) Your worships, 'tis no use
Denying it. But as I say, our bull
Curst with the midge——

Prosecutor
Speak to the case, old man,
You see the prisoner!

Old Goffo.
Ay, Sir, ay. Our bull,
Bit like a loach——

A Judge.
Wake up, thou prating loon,
Or have thine ears slit! To the case, I say,
And leave this babble!

Old Goffo.
Good, your worships, yes.
Where was I, please your worships? Ay. Our bull——

A Judge.
Silence!

Another Judge.
Nay, Colonel, let him on. Well,
sirrah!

Old Goffo.
Our bull, your worship—I am seventy year
And more, but let me see the beast, your worship,
That throws me, bull or cow, with a fair odds.
But, as I say, our Lammas calf—a better
Never suck'd dam—'twas eight weeks old that day,
Had took the murrain—as it might be here—
I made a shift—my poor old back, your worships!
And knelt to feed it; when up comes our bull,
And down I am. Not that I think, your worships,——

A Judge.
Babbling old man, hear me. Answer me shortly
What I shall ask thee. Jailor, heat thine irons,
And burn his tongue out if he fails. Now, sirrah,
What of this man?

Old Goffo.
Please you, my lord, he came—
Not that I ever saw him till that hour—
My lord, I am a poor old man, my lords,
I am a very poor old man—the bishop——

A Judge.
Silence! the prisoner saved you? Is it so?

Old Goffo.
Please you, my lord, he did, my lord——

A Judge.
And you?

Old Goffo.
My lords, it was the only piece I had—
By all the saints!—nay, pray, your worships, mercy,
A poor old man! I meant to pay it back—
My lord the bishop's steward that same day,
Says he, Go buy——

A Judge.
Enough! you gave the prisoner
A coin—and why?

Old Goffo.
An offering, please your worships,
An old man's life is sweet—I swear, my lords,
Only an offering—nay——

Another Judge.
Piously done!
Speak up, good man! The prisoner took it?

Old Goffo.
Ah,
Sirs, that an honest man who served his bishop
Good sixty year—nay, I might say, your worships,
Sixty and one: at Martinmas—I mind it
Well—I was hired. My mother—rest her soul,
She was a mother, sirs,—she says—says she——

A Judge.
Jailor, your irons!

Old Goffo.
Mercy, oh, my lords,
I will speak—mercy, oh, my lords——

A Judge.
Hear me.
Say yes or no. The prisoner kept your coin?

Old Goffo.
No, please my lord.

A Judge.
No, sirrah? How?

Old Goffo.
Nay, mercy!
My lords, I will tell all.

Judge.
Peace, fool, say on.

Old Goffo.
Please you, he flung it on the ground, and stamp'd it
Like any ram—my lords—as I stand here,—
And said——

Judge.
Ay, tell us what he said.

Old Goffo.
My lords,
I am a very feeble poor old man,
I pray your worships mercy—on my knees—
My lords—my youngest girl left one small child,
For pity's sake, my lords, remember it,—
My youngest daughter, please your worships,—she
Left him to me—for pity's sake, my lords,
My lords, for pity's sake!

A Judge.
Is there none here
Who will interpret this strange witness?

Prosecutor.
Sir,
The poor half-witted dotard fears to be
Confounded with his benefactor. I,
Marshalling the evidence, heard this from him,
That when the prisoner saw the superscription
And image of my lord the duke, he spurn'd
The money, and declared that masses bought
With king-stamp'd price purchased the soul for hell,
With sundry other ravings, treating of
Rome and Republics.

A Judge.
I this so?

Old Goffo.
My lords,
'Tis very true.

President
(who enters).
Eh—eh—why this is treason,
Treason—eh—said he so?—honest old man,
Speak on—he told thee—eh—yes, yes, he told thee
All kinds of things—eh—yes—to slay the bishop,
Speak out—fear not—to slay the bishop—eh?——

Old Goffo.
My lords, as I shall answer on my soul,
He said not so; rather, my lords, he bade——

President.
There, get you gone—there, get you gone——

Prosecutor.
Call up
Signor Pulito Mansueto. Now, Sir,
What say you?

Mansueto.
Sir, I have a son. The son
Of my grey widowhood. To whose dear tune
I have so play'd my life, in the dim future
Of my old heart I own no single hope
That has not all his features. What he was
To me, a daughter seem'd to my rich neighbour,
Worthy Antonio; and wherein my son
Fail'd of perfection's stature, it did show
Complete in her. Antonio and I,
Old Schoolfellows—had mark'd them for each other,
Well pleased to make our dynasties shake hands
When we might greet no longer.

A Judge.
Is it likely, friend,
The poison wrought no further? Had this knave
No monetary service of your son?
Had he——

President.
Eh—money—eh—old gentleman?
What? Did he rob you?

Mansueto.
On my honour, no.
My child, Sir, is no felon. He took nothing
But his old lyre. Nay, now you urge my thought,
There was an ancient toga which had hung
With other Roman relics in my hall,
He took that with him. And God bless him with it!
Sir, I am not a seer, but methinks
Your house is childless.

Prosecutor.
Call Capo di Matti!
Now, Matti, what are you?

Matti.
My lords, I am,
Or was, my lords, of late, house-steward to
My lord the marquis.

A Judge.
And you know this man?

President.
Eh—eh—you know him? Look the man in the face.
Turn about, prisoner! Eh, you dog——

Matti.
My lords,
He was a frequent guest where I have served,
A very turbulent fellow, good my lords,
And dangerous to the state.

A Judge.
And in your business——

President.
Eh—yes, your business—eh? your daily business
At table, eh? and so forth. You have heard—
Speak up, Sir, you have heard?

Matti.
As this, my lords.
His manner was to say with many words,
Your worships have no right in Italy,
No, not so much as to the ground you stand on.
Then 'twas his pleasure to revile crown'd heads;
His highness is no duke,—his majesty
No emperor or king,—my lord the pope—
A Catholic tongue, my lords, may not deliver
His awful discourse of my lord the pope!
But most, my lords, it was his wont to boast
Of some strange secret known to himself only,
To sweep your worships from this land, without
Gun, sword, or pistol. Which, my lords, I hold
To be some compound hot and devilish
Of his black art. My lords, I know the time
When I have sick'd to hear him. Once, my lords,
As I shall answer on my sinful soul,
The prisoner promised my late lord, the marquis,
To show him all his secret after dinner,
I' the garden house. My lords, some said that eve
It thunder'd. I knew better.

A Judge.
This is fearful.
Well, Sir,——

Matti.
And, please our lordships, at my lord's
He wore no cowl—my lords, he is no priest—
This gown, my lords, is worn the better to carry
His villanous compound. I have heard him say so.

A Judge.
Heaven and earth!

President.
What? What? not a priest, and wear
Priest's clothes? Why, blasphemy—eh? Blasphemy,
Rank blasphemy—put it down so.

A Judge.
Well, fellow,
This shall be thought on.

Matti.
I do fear to say
What more I heard.

A Judge.
Speak out!

Another.
Sirrah, thine oath!

Matti.
Nay then, my lords, nay, to say truth, my lords,
A man is none the worse for what he hears—
Or you, my lords——

A Judge.
Speak to the point!

Matti.
My lords,
Am I held guiltless?—Servants have their duties——

A Judge.
Speak out, I say.

Matti.
My lords, it seems to pass
Man's wickedness—but, as I hope to see
Heaven and the blessed, this man hath conspired
To level every city, small and great,
In all this land save one. Sirs, take it down,
I swear, my lords, even to the very words
A hundred times repeated, till my knees
Shook to stand by—‘Rome all, Rome only,’ so
He phrased it. I speak true, my lords——

Prosecutor.
The Court
Shall hear a confirmation. You may go.
Stand up, Bugiardo Sporco, serving-man
To the aforesaid marquis——

A Voice from the Crowd.
But discharged
(Let the Court take good note of it) for lying,
Theft, and adultery.

Prosecutor.
Silence! my lord marquis.
Now, fellow, have you heard ill of this prisoner?

Sporco.
Times out of mind, my lord.

A Judge.
Tell what was wont
To be his converse at your master's table.

Sporco.
First and foremost, to cut all Austrian throats—
Pillage all churches—ravish all the women,
And hold them afterwards in common; ten
To each man. Then he had a plan to roast——

Shouts from the Crowd.
Down with the rascal! kill him where he stands.
Stones! Stones! Stones!

A Judge.
Soldiers, save the witness.

Another.
Charge
This rabble.

A Friend of the Monk's.
Peace, good people.

The Crowd.
Peace! peace! peace!

Prosecutor.
Call up——

A Judge.
The Court is satisfied. Arraign
The prisoner.

An Officer.
How say'st thou, Vittorio Santo,
Sometime, but falsely, self-styled Monk of Jesus,
And now on trial. Thou hast had free hearing
Of thine accusers. Speak. Guilty ot not?

The Monk
(musing).
‘It is in vain to rise up early, to sit
Up late, to eat the bread of sorrows. So
He giveth His beloved rest.’

Officer.
Vittorio Santo! self-styled Monk of Jesus,
Guilty or not? Answer!

The Monk
(musing).
You, you that cry
‘How long?’ be patient; is not your heaven sweet?

Officer.
Vittorio Santo—self-styled Monk of Jesus,
Guilty or not?

The Monk
(musing).
Brother! it is thy voice;
'Twas well of thee, my brother! to speak now.
The home, the plain, the column by the tower,
Sickness, thy love, loss, death: the revelation,
Resolve, thought, labour, disappointment, triumph,
And now the end. Yes, it was well, my brother!

A Judge.
Shout in his ear. Smite him, ye drowsy guards.
What! shall this slave despise us? Corporal, hither!
Thou hast a voice, cry out, ‘Vittorio Santo,
Guilty or not?’

Corporal
(shouts).
Santo! Vittorio Santo!
Guilty or not?

The Monk.
I am a Roman. Find me
A judge and I refuse not to be tried.

Prosecutor.
Traitor! thou standest at the judgment-seat
Of Wollustling von Bauerhund von Bosen,
Baron of Herrschwuth and Scheinheiligkeit,
Count d'Omicidio, Marshal in the armies
Of that dread sovereign Apostolical
Our Liege and thine—the imperial Ferdinand,
Emperor of Austria—King——

The Monk.
Peace! I have heard
His titles. Find me, friend, a judge, and I
Refuse not to be tried.

The President.
A judge! eh? what?
A judge—eh—are we not a judge? eh? what?
Nay, pull his cowl about his face! There! flout him!
Spit at him! Dog! Nay, we will teach thee, cur!
A judge forsooth! Pluck the mad priest by the nose;
Nay, not a judge? Then hear thy sentence——

The Monk.
Spare
Thy lips, for I appeal.

President.
Appeal, appeal,
Nay, he appeals, the dog! Appeals! hear that!
By Heavens! appeals! Appeal, vile slave? to whom?

The Monk.
To that which—looking o'er your heads and through
These walls, which soon shall be as dust—I see
Rise like an awful spirit from the earth.
To you, as yet, invisible. To me,
Present and filling all things. Strong as fate;
Dreadful as heavenly justice; more imperial
Than all the builders of the Babylons;
Invincible as death; and beautiful
As itself only.

President.
Drag the traitor out!
What! Does he threaten us with ghosts?

Men rush in shouting.
To arms!
To arms!

Others.
The mob!

Others.
Rebellion!

Others.
Carbonari!

A Judge.
Guard the priest!

Enter Soldier.
Soldier.
Captain, twenty thousand men,
By my guess—rogues and peasants——

Captain.
How far hence

Soldier.
Three gunshots.

Captain.
Armed?

Soldier.
Ordnance, they say!

Captain.
Who leads?

Soldier.
A Woman.

A Judge.
Man the gates!

Men (rushing in).
The mob! the mob!

A Spectator
(to the Monk).
Be these thy ghosts then?

The Monk.
Were the troubled waters
The angel? Yet how many at Bethesda
Saw no more than the trouble!

Spectator.
Being heal'd,
What matter?

The Monk.
Good friend, much. The heal'd will worship
The healer.

Men (rushing in).
Haste, haste, haste.

More.
My lords! a woman,
My lords! a woman like a prophetess,
Hair in the winds, and eyes on fire——

A Judge.
We know.
Peace! Guards, remove the prisoner!

President.
Eh—eh—what—
Remove—remove—yes, yes, off with him—eh?
You lag? You dogs! lend me a bayonet! There,
There! by the heels! Drag him out by the heels!

A Judge
(to the Captain).
Tell off two hundred. By the southern gate
Lead out your prisoner. Underneath the walls
Let him be shot. Face right about, and reach
The western heights.

Great shouts without.
Down with the Austrians! Arms!
Blood! Charge! Death—death to tyrants! Victory! Freedom!

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

A MUSING ON A VICTORY.

ISABEL.

TO A CATHEDRAL TOWER, ON THE EVENING OF THE THIRTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF WATERLOO.

CRAZED.

THE SNOWDROP IN THE SNOW.

THE HARPS OF HEAVEN.

On a solemn day
I clomb the shining bulwark of the skies:
Not by the beaten way,
But climbing by a prayer,
That like a golden thread hung by the giddy stair
Fleck'd on the immemorial blue,
By the strong step-stroke of the brave and few,
Who, stirr'd by echoes of far harmonies,
Must either lay them down and die of love,
Or dare
Those empyrean walls that mock their starward eyes.
But midway in the dread emprize
The faint and fainter footsteps cease;
And, all my footing gone,
Like one who gathers samphire, I hold on,
And in the swaying air look up and down:
And up and down through answering vasts descry
Nor Earth nor Heaven;
Above,
The sheer eternal precipice; below,
The sheer eternal precipice.
Then when I,
Gigantic with my desperate agony,
Felt even
The knotted grasp of bodily despair
Relaxing to let go,
A mighty music, like a wind of light,
Blew from the imminent height,
And caught me in its splendour; and, as flame
That flickers and again aspires,
Rose in a moment thither whence it came;
And I, that thought me lost,
Pass'd to the top of all my dear desires,
And stood among the everlasting host.
Then turn'd I to a seraph whose swift hands,
That lived angelic passion, struck his soul
Upon a harp—a seraph fair and strong,
And faultless for his harp and for his throne,
And yet, among
The Strength and Beauty of the heavenly bands,
No more to be remember'd than some one
Poor warrior, when a king of many kings
Stamps on the fields, and rears his glittering crop
Of standing steel, and the vex'd spirit wings
Above the human harvest, and in vain
Begins from morn till eve to sum the embattled plain;
Or when,
After a day of peace, sudden and late
The beacon flashes and the war-drums roll,
And through the torches of the city gate,
All the long winter night a martial race
Streams to the nation's gathering-place,
And, like as water-drop to water-drop,
Pour on in changeless flood the innumerable men.
I turn'd, and as from footing in mid-seas
Looking o'er lessening waves thou may'st behold
The round horizon of unshadow'd gold,
I, standing on an amethyst, look'd round
The moving Heaven of Harpers throned and crown'd,
And said, ‘Was it from these
I heard the great sound?’ And he said, ‘What sound?’
Then I grown bolder, seeing I had thriven
To win reply—‘This that I hear from thee,
This that everywhere I hear,
Rolling a sea of choristry
Up and down the jewel of Heaven;
A sea which from thy seat of light,
That seems more loud and bright
Because more near,
To the white twinkle of yon furthest portal,
Swells up those circling shores of chrysolite,
And, like an odorous luminous mist, doth leap the eternal walls,
And falls
In wreaths of melody
Adown the azure mountain of the sky;
And round its lower slopes bedew'd
Breathes lost beatitude;
And far away,
Low, low, below the last of all its lucent scarps,
Sprinkles bewildering drops of immortality.
O angel fair, thou know'st what I would say—
This sound of harpers that I hear,
This sound of harpers harping on their harps.’
Then he bent his head
And shed a tear
And said,
‘I perceive thou art a mortal.’
Then I to him—‘Not only, O thou bright
Seraphic Pity! to a mortal ear
These sacred sounds are dear,
Or why withholdest not thy ceaseless hand?
And why,
Far as my dazzled eye
Can pierce the lustre of the radiant land,
See I the rapt celestial auditory,
Each, while he blessed hears, gives back his bliss
With never-tiring touch from golden harps like this?’
Then he to me—‘Oh, wherefore hast thou trod
Beyond the limit of thine earthly lot?
These that we bear
Within our hands are instruments of glory,
Wherewith, day without night,
We make the glory of immortal light
In the eyes of God.
As for the sound, we hear it not;
Yet, speaking to thee, child of ignorance,
I do remember that I loved it once,
In the sweet lower air.’
Yet he spake once more,—
‘But thou return to the remember'd shore;
Why shouldst thou leave thy nation,
Thy city, and the house of all most dear?
Do we not all dwell in eternity?
For we have been as thou, and thou
Shalt be as we.’
And he lean'd and kissèd me,
Saying, ‘But now
Rejoice, O child, in other joys than mine
Hear the dear music of thy mortal ear
While yet it is the time with thee,
Nor make haste to thine exaltation,
Though our state be better than thine.’

SONNETS ON THE WAR.

(THE CRIMEAN STRUGGLE)

L'AVENIR.

I saw the human millions as the sand
Unruffled on the starlit wilderness.
The day was near, and every star grew less
In universal dawn. Then woke a band
Of wheeling winds, and made a mighty stress
Of morning weather; and still wilder went
O'er shifting plains, till, in their last excess,
A whirlwind whirled across the whirling land.
Heaven blackened over it; a voice of woes
Foreran it; the great noise of clanging foes
Hurtled behind; beneath the earth was rent,
And howling Death, like an uncaverned beast,
Leaped from his lair. Meanwhile morn oped the East,
And thro' the dusty tumult God arose.

THE ARMY SURGEON.

Over that breathing waste of friends and foes,
The wounded and the dying, hour by hour,—
In will a thousand, yet but one in power,—
He labours thro' the red and groaning day.
The fearful moorland where the myriads lay
Moved as a moving field of mangled worms.
And as a raw brood, orphaned in the storms,
Thrust up their heads if the wind bend a spray
Above them, but when the bare branch performs
No sweet parental office, sink away
With hopeless chirp of woe, so as he goes
Around his feet in clamorous agony
They rise and fall; and all the seething plain
Bubbles a cauldron vast of many-coloured pain.

THE WOUNDED.

‘Thou canst not wish to live,’ the surgeon said.
He clutched him, as a soul thrust forth from bliss
Clings to the ledge of Heaven! ‘Would'st thou keep this
Poor branchless trunk?’ ‘But she would lean my head
Upon her breast; oh, let me live!’ ‘Be wise.’
‘I could be very happy; both these eyes
Are left me; I should see her; she would kiss
My forehead: only let me live.’—He dies
Even in the passionate prayer. ‘Good Doctor, say
If thou canst give more than another day
Of life?’ ‘I think there may be hope.’ ‘Pass on.
I will not buy it with some widow's son!’
‘Help,’ ‘help,’ ‘help,’ ‘help!’ ‘God curse thee!’ ‘Doctor, stay,
Yon Frenchman went down earlier in the day.’

THE WOUNDED.

‘See to my brother, Doctor; I have lain
All day against his heart; it is warm there;
This stiffness is a trance; he lives! I swear,—
I swear he lives!’ ‘Good Doctor, tell my ain
Auld Mother’—but his pale lips moved in vain.
‘Doctor, when you were little Master John,
I left the old place; you will see it again.
Tell my poor Father,—turn down the wood-lane
Beyond the home-field—cross the stepping stone
To the white cottage, with the garden gate—
O God!’—he died. ‘Doctor, when I am gone
Send this to England.’ ‘Doctor, look upon
A countryman!’ ‘Devant mon Chef? Ma foi!’
‘Oui, il est blessé beaucoup plus que moi.’

VOX POPULI.

What if the Turk be foul or fair? Is't known
That the sublime Samaritan of old
Withheld his hand till the bruised wretch had told
His creed? Your neighbour's roof is but a shed,
Yet if he burns shall not the flame enfold
Your palace? Saving his, you save your own.
Oh ye who fall that Liberty may stand,
The light of coming ages shines before
Upon your graves! Oh ye immortal band,
Whether ye wrestled with this Satan o'er
A dead dog, or the very living head
Of Freedom, every precious drop ye bled
Is holy. 'Tis not for his broken door
That the stern goodman shoots the burglar dead.

CZAR NICHOLAS.

We could not turn from that colossal foe,
The morning shadow of whose hideous head
Darkened the furthest West, and who did throw
His evening shade on Ind. The polar bow
Behind him flamed and paled, and through the red
Uncertain dark his vasty shape did grow
Upon the sleepless nations. Lay him low!
Aye, low as for our priceless English dead
We lie and groan to-day in England! Oh,
My God! I think Thou hast not finished
This Thy fair world, where, triumph Ill or Good,
We still must weep; where or to lose or gain
Is woe; where Pain is medicined by Pain,
And Blood can only be washed out by Blood.

CAVALRY CHARGE AT BALACLAVA.

Traveller on foreign ground, whoe'er thou art,
Tell the great tidings! They went down that day
A Legion, and came back from victory
Two hundred men and Glory! On the mart
Is this ‘to losc?’ Yet, Stranger, thou shalt say
These were our common Britons. 'Tis our way
In England. Aye, ye heavens! I saw them part
The Death-Sea as an English dog leaps o'er
The rocks into the ocean. He goes in
Thick as a lion, and he comes out thin
As a starved wolf; but lo! he brings to shore
A life above his own, which when his heart
Bursts with that final effort, from the stones
Springs up and builds a temple o'er his bones.

HOME, IN WAR-TIME.

She turned the fair page with her fairer hand—
More fair and frail than it was wont to be—
O'er each remembered thing he loved to see
She lingered, and as with a fairy's wand
Enchanted it to order. Oft she fanned
New motes into the sun; and as a bee
Sings thro' a brake of bells, so murmured she,
And so her patient love did understand
The reliquary room. Upon the sill
She fed his favourite bird. ‘Ah, Robin, sing!
He loves thee.’ Then she touches a sweet string
Of soft recall, and towards the Eastern hill
Smiles all her soul—for him who cannot hear
The raven croaking at his carrion ear.

WARNING.

Virtue is Virtue, writ in ink or blood.
And Duty, Honour, Valour, are the same
Whether they cheer the thundering steps of Fame
Up echoing hills of Alma, or, more blest,
Walk with her in that band where she is least
Thro' smiling plains and cities doing good.
Yet, oh to sing them in their happier day!
Yon glebe is not the hind whose manhood mends
Its rudeness, yet it gains but while he spends,
And mulcts him rude. Even that sinless Lord
Whose feet wan Mary washed, went not His way
Uncoloured by the Galilean field;
And Honour, Duty, Valour, seldom wield
With stainless hand the immedicable sword.

AMERICA.

Men say, Columbia, we shall hear thy guns.
But in what tongue shall be thy battle-cry?
Not that our sires did love in years gone by,
When all the Pilgrim Fathers were little sons
In merrie homes of Englaunde? Back, and see
Thy satchelled ancestor! Behold, he runs
To mine, and, clasped, they tread the equal lea
To the same village-school, where side by side
They spell ‘our Father.’ Hard by, the twin-pride
Of that grey hall whose ancient oriel gleams
Thro' yon baronial pines, with looks of light
Our sister-mothers sit beneath one tree.
Meanwhile our Shakspeare wanders past and dreams
His Helena and Hermia. Shall we fight?

AMERICA.

Nor force nor fraud shall sunder us! Oh ye
Who north or south, on east or western land,
Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth,
Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God
For God; Oh ye who in eternal youth
Speak with a living and creative flood
This universal English, and do stand
Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand
Heroic utterance—parted, yet a whole,
Far, yet unsevered,—children brave and free
Of the great Mother-tongue, and ye shall be
Lords of an Empire wide as Shakspeare's soul,
Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,
And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spencer's dream.

A STATESMAN.

Captain be he, my England, who doth know
Not careful coasts, with inland welcomes warm;
But who, with heart infallible, can go
Straight to the gulf-streams of the World, where blow
The inevitable Winds. Let cockles swarm
The sounded shores. He helms Thee, England! who,
Faced by the very Spirit of the Storm,
Full at the phantom drives his dauntless prow!
And tho' the Vision rend in racks of blood,
And drip in thunder from his reeling spars,
The compass in his hand, beholds the flood
Beneath, o'er-head the everlasting stars
Dim thro' the gory ghost; and calm in these,
Thro' that tremendous dream sails on to happier seas.

POLAND. ITALY. HUNGARY.

In the great Darkness of the Passion, graves
Were oped, and many Saints which slept arose.
So in this latter Darkness, which doth close
Upon our noon. That Peace Divine which saves
And blesses, and from the celestial waves
Of whose now-parted garment our worst woes
Did touch a healing virtue, by our foes
Is crucified. The inextricable slaves
Have slain what should have set them free. Behold
The vail is rent! Earth yawns; the rocks are hurled
In twain; and Kingdoms long since low and cold,
Each with his dead forgotten brow enfurled
In that proud flag he fell upon of old,
Come forth into the City of the World.

JERUSALEM.

If God so raise the Dead, shall He pass by
The Captive and the immemorable chain?
Fud(ce)a capta!—taken but not slain—
And cursèd not to die—ah, not to die?
Then come out of thine ages, thou art free!
Live but one Greek in old Thermopylæ,
And Greece is saved! Dark stands the Northern Fate
At Europe's open door; upon her nod
To pass that breach a hundred nations wait.
What! shall we meet her with the bayonet?
As the West sets the Sun 'twixt sea and sky
In that Great Gate, Immortal! let us set
Thy doom; quit Destiny with Destiny,
Meet Fate by Fate, and fill the gap with God.

AUSTRIAN ALLIANCE.

Doth this hand live? Trust not a royal coat,
My country! Smite that cheek; there is no stain
But of the clay! no flush of shame or pain.
This is the smell o' the grave. Lift the gold crown
And see that brow. Lo! how the dews drip down
The empty house! The worm is on the walls,
And the half-shuttered lights are dull and dead
With dusty desecration. The soul fled
On a spring-day within thy palace-halls,
Hapsburg! and all the days of all the springs
Of all the ages bring it not again!
Vampyre! we wrench thee from the breathing throat
Of living Man, and he leaps up and flings
Thy rotten carcase at the heads of Kings.

CHILDLESS.

The Son thou sentest forth is now a Thought—
A Dream. To all but thee he is as nought
As if he had gone back into the same
Bosom that bare him. Oh, thou grey pale Dame,
With eyes so wan and wide, what! knowest thou where
Thy Dream is such a thing as doth up-bear
The earth out of its wormy place? I' the air
Dost see the very fashion of the stone
That hath his face for clay? Deep, deep, hast found
The texture of that single weight of ground
Which to each mole and mark that thou hast known
Is special burden? Nay, her face is mild
And sweet. In Heaven the evening star is fair,
And there the mother looketh for her child.

THE COMMON GRAVE.

Last night beneath the foreign stars I stood
And saw the thoughts of those at home go by
To the great grave upon the hill of blood.
Upon the darkness they went visibly,
Each in the vesture of its own distress.
Among them there came One, frail as a sigh,
And like a creature of the wilderness
Dug with her bleeding hands. She neither cried
Nor wept; nor did she see the many stark
And dead that lay unburied at her side.
All night she toiled, and at that time of dawn,
When Day and Night do change their More and Less,
And Day is More, I saw the melting Dark
Stir to the last, and knew she laboured on.

ESSE ET POSSE.

The groan of fallen Hosts; a torrid glare
Of cities; battle-cries of Right and Wrong
Where armies shout to rocking fleets that roar
On thundering oceans to the thundering shore,
And high o'er all—long, long prolonged, along
The moaning caverns of the plaining air,—
The cry of conscious Fate. The firmament
Waves from above me like a tattered flag;
And as a soldier in his lowly tent
Looks up when a shot strikes the helpless rag
From o'er him, and beholds the canopy
Of Heaven, so, sudden to my startled eye,
The Heavens that shall be! The dream fades. I stand
Among the mourners of a mourning land.

GOOD-NIGHT IN WAR-TIME.

The stars we saw arise are high above,
And yet our Evensong seems sung too soon.
Good-Night! I lay my hand—with such a love
As thou wert brother of my blood—upon
Thy shoulder, and methinks beneath the moon
Those sisters, Anglia and Caledon,
Lean towards each other. Aye, for Man is one;
We are a host ruled by one trumpet-call,
Where each, armed in his sort, makes as he may
The general motion. The well-tuned array
We see; yet to what victory in what wars
We see not; but like the revolving stars
Move on ourselves. The total march of all
Or men or stars God knows. Lord, lead us on!

ENGLAND IN TIME OF WAR.

DESOLATE.

THE MARKET-WIFE'S SONG.

THE LITTLE GIRL'S SONG.

‘HE IS SAFE.’

THE SODGER'S LASSIE.

LADY CONSTANCE.

HOW'S MY BOY?

FAREWELL.

THE MILKMAID'S SONG.

THE GERMAN LEGION.

A HEALTH TO THE QUEEN.

WOE IS ME.

THE YOUNG MAN'S SONG.

DEAD-MAID'S-POOL.

THE SAILOR'S RETURN.

THE WIDOW'S LULLABY.

THE GABERLUNZIE'S WALK.

LIBERTY TO M. LE DIPLOMATE.

Thou fool who treatest with the sword, and not
With the strong arm that wields it! Thou insane
Who seest the dew-drops on the lion's mane,
But dost forget the lion! Oh thou sot,
Hugging thy drunken dream! Thou idiot
Who makest a covenant against the rain
With autumn leaves! Thou atheist who dost chain
This miserable body that can rot,
And thinkest it Me! Fool! for the swordless arm
Shall strike thee dead. Madman, the lion wakes,
And with one shake is dry. Sot, the day breaks
Shall sober even thee. Idiot, one storm
And thou art bare. Atheist, the corse is thine,
But lo, the unfettered soul immortal and divine!

AN EVENING DREAM.

IN WAR-TIME

A PSALM OF THE HEART.

A SHOWER IN WAR-TIME.

IN WAR-TIME.

A PRAYER OF THE UNDERSTANDING.

A HERO'S GRAVE.

IN WAR-TIME.

AN ASPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT.

HOME, WOUNDED.

A NUPTIAL EVE.

THE MOTHER'S LESSON.

ALONE.

FAREWELL.

SLEEPING AND WAKING.

‘HE LOVES AND HE RIDES AWAY.’

THE CAPTAIN'S WIFE.

GRASS FROM THE BATTLE-FIELD.

AFLOAT AND ASHORE.

THE GHOST'S RETURN.

DAFT JEAN.

THE RECRUITS' BALL.

Fiddler loquitur.

FOR CHARITY'S SAKE.

WIND.

‘WHEN THE RAIN IS ON THE ROOF.’

THE BOTANIST'S VISION.

The sun that in Breadalbane's lake doth fall
Was melting to the sea down golden Tay,
When a cry came along the peopled way,
‘Sebastopol is ours!’ From that wild call
I turned, and leaning on a time-worn wall
Quaint with the touch of many an ancient day,
The mappèd mould and mildewed marquetry
Knew with my focussed soul; which bent down all
Its sense, power, passion, to the sole regard
Of each green minim, as it were but born
To that one use. I strode home stern and hard;
In my hot hands I laid my throbbing head,
And all the living world and all the dead
Began a march which did not end at morn.

THE ORPHAN'S SONG.

TOMMY'S DEAD.

‘SHE TOUCHES A SAD STRING OF SOFT RECALL.’